The debut London project from Berkeley Square Hospitality, DakaDaka comes from Giorgi Mindiashvili and Mitz Vora, who've been behind some of our favourite spots in Tbilisi. Their first UK outpost puts Georgian cooking front and centre, with open-fire grilling, native ingredients, and seasonal British produce reimagining the country's rich culinary traditions. On the drinks front, you're looking at an extremely good line-up of 100 Georgian natural wines, alongside beers and cocktails built around ChaCha (a grape-based spirit that definitely deserves a warning label).
The first time I ate a was in 2003, and after one bite of that soupy, oversize dumpling, I became obsessed with the food of the former Soviet republic of Georgia. I started making pilgrimages to Georgian restaurants wherever I could find them, snarfing down cheese-stuffed breads and garlic chicken, pickled walnuts and those delicious khinkali. I often imagined what the food would taste like in its motherland, but for 20 years I was too busy and broke to trek to the small, mountainous nation.