First Scandinavian Restaurant Opens in Tbilisi
The first Scandinavian restaurant in Tbilisi opened about a month ago and has already gained a huge fandom amongst both Georgians and expats. It is the first restaurant to have a shop on site, offering homemade foods, jams, pickles, and chutneys. Here, in a cozy environment you will be served with a great combination of Scandinavian and Georgian cuisine, the best European and Georgian wine and what’s most important, you will feel at home. Georgia Today met Tobias Dyreborg, owner and manager of Stampesoe Delicatessen Restaurant, to talk about this terrific food locale.
Tobias, how did you discover Georgia?
The reason I started learning about Georgia was due to the fact I’ve worked with food and wine all over the world. I worked on natural wine in Denmark and then I was told to check out the natural wine scene. It took me a few years to go back and forth and after some time I realized that it would be interesting to come here and see the potential to make a Nordic style restaurant with Georgian organic products.
I moved here eight months ago and deal with the general day-to-day running of the restaurant and shop. I wanted to try to make a combination of delicatessen and restaurant and to do so in a Nordic way. I was inspired with the many such places I saw in Europe and Denmark
What do you offer your customers?
1% European organic wines and Italian products alongside 99% Georgian wines and foods. Additionally, we work with lots of Georgian people to promote local products. We have eleven different kinds of honeys from all over Georgia. We soon realized that there was room to do something a little bit different with our produce and so we made up different lunch and evening menus, separate menus, daily soups, and individual menus for Fridays and Saturdays of a more European style. We do all kind of salads, including traditional Danish salads. In the evenings we offer very classical Danish dishes with a little twist to fit them with Georgian products. We’ve also brought some new technology that was hard to get. For instance, we use a sous vide to do our chicken- cooking it in a sous vide for over 6 hours with butter, honey, and mustard. The taste is pretty intense.
Which dish to customers like best?
The chicken with honey and mustard is very popular among our customers.
As a chef, what is most important to you to offer customers?
It was important for us to have a homely feeling. When you come here you should feel at home, we want people to feel welcomed, relaxed, and also to experience high quality service and constant innovation. I’ve been coming to Georgia for a while and I don’t see many changes in terms of food venues. Some have changing seasonal menus but many don’t develop and have the same menus the entire year. I understand it depends on revenue and it’s not so easy to change the dishes, but we are willing to work in this direction. For people coming here there will be a new experience every time. That’s why people should come here; a place where you want to drop into not just to come to a formal restaurant for a meal. I will say that we’ve been very well received. The locals and expat community as equally happy to come here.
Tell us about the shop
We decided to open a shop in the restaurant to offer pickles. This products in the shop are made with Georgian organic products but the technique we use is Danish. You can come eat and then buy something to take home. Additionally, we make our own bread. I find it difficult to find high quality bread here. Therefore, we bake it on our own, offering something new for Georgians. But since we own a small place we have no capacity for full a size bakery. It’s my dream to add several businesses down the line. But the ultimate dream is to buy some land in Kakheti to grow on my own vegetables, to have my own pigs, my own chickens. As for the restaurant, we also plan to make a small sitting area downstairs and offer coffee.
If you have been inspired to give the homely Stampesoe a try, head over to Lado Asatiani Str. 56.
Meri Taliashvili