On our trip to Georgia and Azerbaijan in July 2026, Dan and I took the Culinary Backstreets Tbilisi food tour on our first full day in Georgia. The tour, Old Town and Beyond: A Tbilisi Silk Road Feast, runs about seven hours and costs $125 per person. We did this because (1) we love to eat and drink and (2) it would give us some historical background and recommendations for Tbilisi. We booked with Culinary Backstreets (not sponsored), the same company we used for our Culinary Backstreets food tour in Izmir in 2023. This post reviews our tour in detail, including what we ate and drank. For how we spent the rest of the week, see our 5-day Tbilisi itinerary.
Tbilisi, Georgia!
Where Our Tbilisi Food Tour Began: Abanotubani
Our tour began at 10:00 a.m. in the Abanotubani district at the southeastern edge of the Old Town of Tbilisi. This district is historically home to many of Tbilisi’s bathhouses, which are fueled by Tbilisi’s hot sulfur springs. We met right in front of the most photogenic bathhouse, Chreli Abano (or the Orbeliani Baths). Yes, this is the blue Persian-style building that many think is a mosque. We also saw the rooftops of other old bathhouses in the area. While the bathhouses had nothing to do with our tour, it was interesting to see.
The Orbeliani Baths.
The roofs of ancient bathhouses.
