Fast facts
Personal info: Giorgi Ninua, 33, born in Tbilisi, Georgia
Current workplace: Ati at Sheraton Grand Tbilisi Metechi Palace
Favourite cuisine: French and Japanese
Giorgi was determined to become a chef, even during his teenage years, but due to the total absence of local culinary schools he instead studied tourism, which seemed closest to his hobby, having ignored his family’s wish for him to become a dentist or lawyer. Having no formal culinary education awakened his instincts and imagination in the art of cooking. And today, as a professional chef, he finds alternative ways to develop his skills by travelling overseas, attending masterclasses, benchmarking different cooking methods with his own, comparing cultures and traditions with one another and adapting international cuisines to fuse with his own creations.
Going back to the 90s, Giorgi spent most summers at his uncle’s country house, where his grandmother planted a garden with rare vegetables. His duty as a kid was to take care of these plants and this is when his love for culinary started. “When you are in a village,” he explains, “you can watch how plants grow, how tomato plants bloom and produce tomatoes, you can harvest carrots from the garden, gather strawberries after the rain. They have a completely different taste: nothing like products bought in the market.”
By the age of 12, he already experimented with cooking. By 16 he started a kitchen job in one of the restaurants on Perovskaia Street that was the most famous eat-out district at that time. His first day was challenging, but as a maximalist he started arriving to work earlier and earlier each day and spend that extra time mastering his skills. Meantime, he was eager to deepen his knowledge in an international environment and became a contracted “Commis Chef” at the world-famous hotel chain The Sheraton in Tbilisi. The next step of his life was working a French restaurant “Le Marais” where he was trained by a French chef. They couldn’t speak each other’s languages, so they developed their very own “kitchen language”. To deepen his understanding of customers’ desires Giorgi then shifted to the front service in an Italian restaurant, but in a few months’ was invited to become a personal chef in a Swiss Ambassador’s residency and was often asked to cook fish, his favourite dish. “I love everything connected to fish: the actual fishing, the preparing of the fish, the cutting, and of course the eating,” he says.
The Ambassador loved gastronomy and seeing Giorgi’s skills and potential, she offered him a job together and a handful of French cookery books. Being able to shop for cooking ingredients gave Giorgi, then aged XX, total control over the menu. He’d come up with an idea by touching actual products, then merging and processing them. He loves seasonal ingredients and playing around with their textures, mixing crispy and crunchy with soft and smooth. The final product needs to be delicately chewy, he says. Like one of his bestselling dishes at Ati Restaurant affectionately named ‘Upside-Down Mushroom’, there are several types of soft mushrooms caps, crunchy onion plates and tarragon powder that pair well with mushrooms and cheese; the mushroom has delicate chewiness and the dish is presented creatively.
“In my 16 years’ experience, I keep reinventing my preparation style to enable me to cook understandable and memorable tastes. My aim is to bring back childhood tastes and tradition, while making the dish trendy and contemporary. While serving a dinner, the Starter has to look good with a ‘wow’ effect. It arrives first on the table and its appearance has to scream. A Starter has to impress a guest so that they think the dinner and restaurant is interesting and everything that comes after will be unforgettable. The Main Course has to be refined and humble: it needs no excessive heights, it has to be proportional and comfortable. A guest should easily find the eating starting point, a plate needs to make you feel harmony. Presentation success is choosing the right serving platter as well.”
Giorgi desires to make Ati Restaurant a destination place, where customers visit – not only for its high-level service or an astonishing view – but for its exceptional dishes.