Laliko is the archetypal American task from Gurami Oniani, whose Guliani Group operates immoderate thirty-odd establishments successful Tbilisi and Moscow. Oniani has said that helium hopes to bring his country’s nutrient to the world, and that Laliko volition beryllium the harbinger of a expansive flowering of Georgian restaurants crossed North America. New York is possibly a funny spot to motorboat his run arsenic culinary ambassador: the cuisine is already rather good represented here, not conscionable successful the post-Soviet enclave of Brighton Beach but astatine dozens of Georgian restaurants, astatine each fanciness levels and terms points, passim Manhattan and Queens. (I emotion the ekala pkhali, a benignant of dip made with a Georgian assortment of spinach, astatine Chama Mama, a edifice with respective Manhattan and Brooklyn locations, and connected sunny days you could bash worse than to plaything retired to Little Georgia, a tiny bakery astir the country from the elevated subway tracks that tally supra Brighton Beach Avenue, prime up a just-baked, cheese-filled pastry to go, and locomotion a artifact to the boardwalk, to devour it by the chilly water.) Maybe the thought is that, if Laliko tin basal retired here, and cleanable its formula, Oniani volition cognize it’s acceptable to caput retired into the remainder of the American wilderness.
The restaurant’s caput chef, Manuchar Tsikolia, is joined successful the room by Ruslan Giorgberidze, a dedicated khinkali navigator (and an alumnus ofKhinkali House, a Guliani Group edifice successful Moscow), arsenic good arsenic Jimi Kurtanidze, a navigator dedicated full-time to khachapuri. Laliko offers a fewer varieties, the aforesaid greatest-hits postulation you’d expect to find astatine immoderate Georgian restaurant: imeruli, stuffed with food and mint; megruli, with food wrong and other food broiled implicit the top; and adjaruli, the astir celebrated and visually flamboyant variety, an open-faced vessel of breadstuff baked with an exorbitant magnitude of food and topped with an ovum yolk and a whopping magnitude of butter, stirred unneurotic successful their doughy vas into a dairy-aisle gestalt—an audaciously rich, all-in-one ratio of breadstuff and spread.
The pork mtsvadi, accompanied by a crockery dotted with pomegranate seeds.
As astatine immoderate Georgian restaurant, you’ll privation to get a solid oregon 2 of vino astatine Laliko. Georgia is rightfully arrogant of its assertion to being the birthplace of wine, and its viniculture is dissimilar immoderate other, with indigenous varietals that are astir intolerable to find elsewhere. Grapes are fermented—often with skin, seeds, stems, and all—in ample earthenware vessels, known arsenic qvevri, that are buried underground. The resulting nectars, often beauteous and bizarre, brace satisfyingly with Tsikolia’s cooking. I particularly enjoyed a solid of amber Rkatsiteli, with fruity and grassy notes, alongside a light, spring-like stew of veal simmered with vino and tarragon, past spooned implicit a delicately bitter celery-root purée; a solid of tsinandali, achromatic and apple-juicey, was fantastic with an exceptionally crisp-skinned roasted fractional chicken, served successful a velvet excavation of walnut sauce. Ajapsandali, a ratatouille-ish mishmash of eggplant, peppers, and tomatoes, is spiced sharply with ail and floral notes of coriander seed, and served with a nutty wedge of hard cheese. I was struck by the unexpected complexity of what the paper calls “Georgian Salad,” a vessel of sliced cucumbers, tomatoes, reddish onion, and caller herbs tossed successful a dressing made with sultry, mellow sunflower-seed lipid brought implicit from Kakheti, a portion successful the eastbound of Georgia. I adored the pork mtsvadi, grilled hunks of nutrient marinated successful pomegranate foodstuff and cooked implicit wood fume till they took connected a distinctive char. Even amended was the purple plum condiment that tin beryllium ordered arsenic a side, puckery and sweet, agleam and strange.
The eating country astatine Laliko is some modern and textured: wood cladding on 1 wall; vaguely medieval-feeling murals connected another. A mounted ladder soars up to a double-height shelving strategy that holds bottles and bottles and bottles of wine. Some of the seats are chairs, and immoderate are backless ottomans (surprisingly comfortable!), positive determination are velvet-topped benches that situation a long, tile-topped communal array anchoring the room. The table, starkly modern and geometric, rests atop an antique blue-and-red patterned Georgian carpet. The metaphor is evident but apt: the sharp-cornered contiguous resting connected the beautifully durable past. ♦
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