By Prof. Giorgi Pkhakadze, MD, MPH, PhD · 15/09/2026
Visitors learn the word khachapuri on the first day and the boat-shaped Adjarian version, with its raw egg and butter, on the second. It is spectacular and it photographs well, which is why it has become the emblem. But ask a Georgian what khachapuri means, without qualification, and the answer is the Imeretian one: a round of soft dough, a layer of cheese, sealed, flattened and baked until the top blisters gold and the inside is molten. It is the base from which every other variant descends, and it comes from the region around Kutaisi.
The cheese
The secret is the cheese, and the cheese is Imeruli — a fresh, mild, slightly sour cow’s-milk curd, made in every farmhouse in the region, sold in white rounds at every market, and used within days. It melts without going stringy and has enough salt to season the bread without anything else. Sulguni, the firmer brined cheese of neighbouring Samegrelo, is often mixed in for stretch; in Tbilisi restaurants that is the norm. In Imereti it is a compromise. The purist’s khachapuri is Imeruli alone, and a good Imeruli needs nothing.
The making
A yeasted dough — in older kitchens, a dough raised with matsoni, the Georgian yoghurt — rolled into a round; the crumbled cheese heaped in the middle; the edges gathered up over it and pinched shut, like a purse; the purse turned over and rolled out again, gently, until the cheese is an even layer inside a flat disc the size of a plate. Baked on a hot stone or in a dry pan, turned once, brushed with butter when it comes out. It is done when the top is blistered and the middle gives. Cut into wedges, eaten hot, with the hands.
The family
From this base: Megrelian khachapuri, the same disc with more cheese baked on top; Adjarian, the open boat from the coast; Rachan lobiani, filled with beans instead of cheese; Svan kubdari, filled with meat; Ossetian, with potato; Guruli, folded into a crescent with a boiled egg inside for Christmas. Every region claims a distinction. Imereti claims priority, and the others, privately, concede it.
Where to eat it
Not in a restaurant, ideally, but in a house — the difference between a khachapuri made from this morning’s cheese and one made from yesterday’s is real. Failing that, at a roadside bakery in Imereti where the ovens are going all day, or at the Kutaisi market, where the women who sell the cheese will tell you exactly which stall bakes with it. With a glass of Imeretian Tsolikouri, the region’s white, which is made for it.
See it with GTour
Lunch on the Kutaisi & Western Georgia tour is Imeretian: khachapuri from a family kitchen, pkhali, and the local wine. The canyons day stops at a bakery on the way.
This story in Georgian — ქართულად: shenidasveneba.ge
ქართულად: იმერული ხაჭაპური — ორიგინალი, და რატომ არის დანარჩენი ასლი
