Aba-Ra!

Aba-Ra! är en restaurang på 108 Brick Ln, Shoreditch/Tower Hamlets i London.

Aba-Ra! proclaims to offer bread, cheese, and wine, but you'd be wrong to assume you'll be greeted with grazing boards – there's proper, hearty Georgian cooking on display here. 

Brick Lane might be famous for its curry houses and bagel shop rivalries, but there are plenty more culinary delights to discover in the area, including Aba-Ra! This independent family-run restaurant serves Georgian food and drinks in a homey setting with exposed brick walls and fur seat covers, while messages by thankful customers, scrawled in chalk, add pops of colour to the interior.

The kitchen cooks up authentic Georgian dishes, with the above-mentioned bread and cheese stealing the show in the form of khachapuris, boat-shaped doughs filled with tantalisingly melted cheese and various other fillings. Other Georgian dishes are well-represented on the menu, too, including tapas-like starters, warming soups, and delicately crafted khinkali dumplings, filled with things like minced beef and aromatic spices. There's even a sweet honeycomb khachapuri for afters, as well as other traditional desserts to round off your meal.

As you dine, the friendly staff will be more than happy to ply you with the fine wines from across Georgia stacked on the restaurant shelves – the country is generally considered the birthplace of wine, with its winemaking heritage going back more than 8,000 years, so there's plenty to discover here. All in all, Aba-Ra! offers a comprehensive dive into warm Georgian hospitality.