EZO Tour: Promoting local farming

Not far from Liberty Square in Tbilisi, by walking up Kikodze street, one can find a typical Georgian courtyard leading to the Ezo restaurant. Inside, Kristo and Gio the owners are preparing a day-trip to Kakheti that they called 'Ezo tour.' The tour takes you three hours from the capital to tour local markets, castles, restaurants, and vineyards, and concludes with a Kakhetian barbecue, a “supra”.

Both organizers are Georgian. At the beginning, the restaurant was their main business, but they decided to expand it one month ago. In fact, this is more likely to be an expansion of their business than a new part of it because the tour consists of promoting their local suppliers, meaning they finally share their work upstream to downstream, from the ground to the plate. It is quite a new idea in the field. Local farming is an important part of Georgian food identity but most tours just deal with Khinkali, churches and landscapes. Here, Ezo gives you the opportunity to take part in the everyday life and to help you to feel like a native, meeting farmers and understanding their work.

More than 7 million tourists visit Georgia annualy, and the national GDP relies on this part of the economy. For now, such “green tours” remains a niche market which is nothing if not a success. It is no surprise: the Ezo tour is a bridge between tourism and local life.

Website: http://www.ezo.tours/

By Antoine Dewaest