Veliaminov - A Tbilisi Embassy of Old School Pleasure

I first wandered into Veliaminov when Eduard Shevardnadze was Georgia’s President and back then it seemed like the joint had been around forever. The red brick cellar walls oozed khashi stock, khinkakli steam and fried potato grease. The staff was grumpy, the guy I always assumed to be the boss, white apron fastened around a somewhat robust belly, stood behind the display case counter standing like a captain at the wheel, abacus and cash box at hand.

Inside the counter were the standard fresh mixed greens and olivier salads next to whole tomatoes and cucumbers, a pickled assortment, boiled beef tongue, maybe slices of poached sturgeon, which is impossible to find these days. The rest of the menu was generic Georgian fare, like the clientele and the sturdy wooden furniture. The khinkali were just as good here as they were anywhere else except El Depo (RIP).

Once I came with a friend during the lunch rush. City Hall used to be across the street and the place was packed with civil servants washing khinkali down with vodka toasts. Soon, we were all clinking glasses together. My friend and I teetered out several toasts later while our new friends, we assumed, returned to work.

Over the years, as the city’s foodscape evolved, I dropped in less frequently until I’d walk past Veliaminov and its new blinking light sign without the slightest inclination of dropping in. My friends had a restaurant upstairs and their reports on the state of the kitchen were not appetizing. “Even their cook recommended not to order khinkali after 3 pm,” they said. That sealed the deal for me, and then I met the Ambassador.

Kristian Brask Thomsen, AKA the Ambassador of Pleasure, is a professional gourmand, a guy who figured out how to make a living eating good food and drinking good wine. His PR firm represents Michelin star chefs and restaurants I’ll never be able to afford. This ought to make him a food snob but he’s no snoot and is especially down to earth; so much so in fact that he rates Veliaminov as one of his favorite restaurants in Georgia.

My favorite greasy spoons have particular dishes that set them apart. For Dukani Racha, it’s a decadent Abkhazura served on a bed of fries that soak up both the grease and my drool. Sasadilo Coca-Cola’s kharcho soup is so orgastic, you press your thighs together while you spoon it in your mouth. I brought the Ambassador here once but ordered kabab instead of soup.

“The kabab at Veliaminov is better,” he quipped.

I was thinking “snob” but said, “You ever see the kitchen there?”

Intrigued, I had to assay the Ambassador’s claim and my memory. Stepping down into the cellar for lunch with a couple friends, I saw a busy place like before, although a lot has changed since those City Hall vodka days. For one thing, there were no Russians then.

The place has been renovated but has kept the same tavern vibe with an added room. It's clean, no longer humid with stove top miasma. The burly counter man’s hair, like mine, is no longer black. He was hanging back in the remodeled kitchen. I imagine it’s his son at the counter expediting dishes and directing the ship. The abacus has been replaced with a calculator and two charge card terminals. Instead of starters, a new display case is stocked with wine and vodka. A busy waitress handed us menus in English. The prices remain amiable.

We skipped tomato cucumber salad, opting for nigvziani badrijani instead. Eggplant stuffed with crushed walnuts are commonplace, but no two restaurants make them the same way. Veliaminov’s walnut pate is fluffy, stuffed inside and on top. They are tender, nearly melt in your mouth and put to shame the soggy rolls you find elsewhere. Other dishes, however, are less remarkable, like ojakhuri and fried sulguni, but the khinkali are reportedly among the best in the city, if not the largest.

“I’ve heard the kabab is really good,” I told my friends. We went with the lamb.

Back when every restaurant in the city shared the same menu, the kabab was my quality gauge. If you can’t get minced meat on a skewer right, how can I expect your shkmeruli to be any good? At the very least, cook the meat all the way through.

Veliaminov does not cut the kabobs with bread crumbs like most everywhere else, but seasons them with an opulence you’d expect at a restaurant that sets the table with a double set of silverware and cloth napkins; exactly the kind of place you would find an ambassador dining in.