“You should run food tours!” exclaimed a friend after New Zealanders Sue Dempsey and Janice Kirkwood led him on a five-day Tokyo eating extravaganza. Little did he know that within two years the intrepid Kiwis would host their first Tokyo food tour.
Since meeting in London in the late 1980s, Sue and Janice have been on an extraordinary journey. Not happy in the jobs they trained for, they completed the Leith’s School of Food & Wine Restaurant Management course in London, aiming to open a cafe back home.
Starting with a small 20-seat cafe in suburban Wellington, these energetic women then set up and successfully ran the much larger Caffe Astoria, on Lambton Quay, for more than 20 years. After selling Astoria in 2016, it was time for a new challenge.
Janice and Sue knew the Tokyo food scene well, having visited the city many times. Having sourced the best food experiences in both high-end and local backstreet eateries, in 2017 they launched Eating Tokyo, a tour combining their passion for food with their love of travel.
When Janice’s partner discovered the gourmet food scene in Lima on a work trip, Sue and Janice set to work researching a new food tour. In 2019 they launched Eating Lima.
A holiday in Georgia (the country, not the state), opened up another world of food. Eating Georgia was born, with tours fully booked in 2020. Then borders closed and travel stopped.
Three years later, I’m joining Sue and Janice on their postponed inaugural Eating Georgia tour. We meet in the restored House Hotel in Tbilisi’s Old Town. Pale blue wooden balustrades, typical of Tbilisi’s architecture, overlook the cobblestoned courtyard. The passion and enthusiasm of these close, down-to-earth friends is obvious.
According to Sue, “Georgian food is at heart, a peasant cuisine and the Georgian supra [feast] is an abundance of simply cooked rustic food”.
At our first dinner “abundance” and “delicious” are the operative words. Starting with a traditional Georgian tomato salad, with a walnut dressing, the dishes keep coming. Jonjoli, a pickled sprout, garnishes the salad. Tkemali sauce, made from Georgian sour plums livens up the beetroot salad and there’s lobiani, a bean-filled flatbread. That’s just for starters. I have a whole new food vocabulary and taste sensation to get my head around.
“Gaumarjos” says Janice raising her glass of amber-coloured white wine. The colour develops through the traditional Georgian method of fermenting grapes with their skins in qvevri, large egg-shaped earthenware pots. Sue explains that for Georgian wine, which is quite different, “there’s a whole new vocabulary needed, as there’s no reference point”. It is different but for this wine novice, it goes down well.
Shoti baking. Photo / Supplied
When a guest asks if, as friends and business partners over many years, Sue and Janice ever argue, the answer is a strong “No”. Their strengths complement each other. At Astoria, Sue, a people person, was front-of-house while Janice felt more comfortable behind the scenes in the kitchen.
On tour, Janice, who “knows exactly what she wants” according to Sue, orders the food and keeps the accounts. Sue, on the other hand, looks out for the guests, checking that everyone is okay and ensuring no one has been left behind.
At Tbilisi’s local food market, we’re introduced to sulguni cheese, svanetian salt, blue fenugreek, tkemali, and spicey ajika. Towers of walnuts hint at the nut being a staple ingredient in many recipes. We discover that marigold is the Georgian saffron and that the colourful candle-like objects hanging in many market stalls are churchkhela, a confectionary made from grape must, nuts and flour.
Shoti Bread and the Tone oven. Photo / Supplied
We learn to make (and eat without messing) khinkali, large dumplings filled with meat floating in a rich broth. Bread accompanies every meal. There’s shoti, a canoe-shaped bread, traditionally baked in a tone (pronounced tone-ay) oven and khachapuri, a soft almost pastry-like cheese-filled pizza-shaped bread. It’s all delicious.
A guest comments “You must have had a lot of fun putting this together”. “Oh yes” replies Sue. Janice adds: “We love our job and we’re learning all the time”.
Eating Georgia is not all about food. Over 10 days we discover Georgia’s culture, architecture and history. Highlights include a Soviet tour of Gori in a 1986 Lada, and four men sitting around a square wooden table breaking into traditional polyphonic singing. We visit an abandoned Soviet spa resort and, driving through the countryside, marvel at the soaring snowcapped Caucasus peaks breaking through white clouds in the late afternoon light.
Folding khinkali. Photo / Supplied
Georgia is an exciting place to visit. Sue and Janice smooth the way through the Georgian world of food, wine and culture. I’m ready to sign up for Eating Tokyo.
Eating Georgia is a small group tour with a maximum of eight guests, with prices from NZ$4495pp, double occupancy. There are limited spaces available in September/October 2023. eatingadventures.co.nz/eating-georgia
