The Bairro Alto restaurant Karater marks a welcome return to Lisbon for Guram Baghdoshvili. The Georgian chef and restaurateur worked in Portugal for 20 years before returning to open a slew of restaurants in Tbilisi and beyond.
In 2024 he and his Portuguese-born, Tbilisi-based business partner, Pedro Carvalho, came back to Portugal and opened a welcome addition to Lisbon’s restaurant scene. Their restaurant, whose full name is Karater – Taste of Georgia, is exactly what you would expect it to be.
The menu is a culinary tour of Georgia, a country that’s increasingly trendy among food and wine lovers. It’s divided into sections for appetizers, soups, salads, Georgian croquettes, khinkali (dumplings), khachapuri (stuffed bread), and mtsvadi (kebabs). Everything is meant to be shared, and a good part of it is naturally vegetarian or even vegan.
Baghdoshvili uses local Portuguese ingredients but says he’s offering a tribute to the authenticity and ancestry of Georgian recipes. That means lots of walnut and eggplant, fresh herbs and tomatoes (but only in season) and ingenious uses of bread. There are also a few luxury flourishes, such as the black truffles that scent the sauce over the mushroom khinkali.
The wine list is all bottles from Georgia, which is one of the oldest winemaking countries in the world. Each selection is also available by the glass, and the restaurant stays open late into the night, making it a good places to sample Georgian wines.
And don’t let the “Bairro Alto restaurant” scare you. Besides a street address, Karater has nothing in common with the late-night bars and overpriced restaurants of the neighborhood. It serves excellent food at a fair price, and it occupies a restored old tavern, with original shelves and floors, soft lighting, and a lovely art nouveau ceiling.
For more information visit the Karater Instagram page.
Karater
Rua do Diário de Notícias 63
Lisbon
Phone: +351 965 744 899
Email: infokarater@gmail.com
Hours: Monday to Thursday – 16:00 to 02:00, Friday to Sunday – 12:00 to 02:00