Steam rises from the oblong, canoe-shaped bread dish as it reaches the table at Nikala in Round Rock, 18 miles north of Austin. Fresh from the oven, its center of melted mozzarella-like sulguni cheese and milky Imeruli curds bubbles alongside an orange egg yolk and a melting slick of butter. This photoworthy composition called adjaruli khachapuri is short-lived if you’re doing it right, because the dish demands that the yolk and butter are quickly stirred with the cheese to create a tangy, salty dip ready to be scooped up with the bread’s pull-apart crust.
Ornate hand-knotted wool rugs, a traditional Georgian dance costume, and other family heirlooms provide the ideal environment for partaking of the quintessential culinary export of the Caucasus region connecting Eastern Europe and Western Asia. The cuisine—which can best be described as Mediterranean meets Middle Eastern meets Slavic—dates back thousands of years. But outside of New York City and Washington, D.C., which have the highest concentration of Georgian immigrants, the country’s food and wine have largely been ignored domestically. That is, until a recent Central Texas boom.
Nikala…