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Since the beginning of 2022, I’ve been living in Tbilisi, and I totally love the place.
Like most cities on the planet, it’s of course home to lots of cafes… but I honestly don’t think I’ve ever been anywhere with a more concentrated selection of cute little places to munch, slurp, and do some remote working.
So in this list, I’ve brought you the 24 best cafes in Tbilisi for drinking coffee, tea, relaxing, and coworking. To make things nice and easy for you, I’ve separated my list into the best places for coworking, and the best places for eating, drinking and relaxing.
Bring an appetite, leave your Nescafe in the cupboard, and come join the fun!
Best Cafes in Tbilisi for Eating, Drinking, and Relaxing
1. Coffee Lab
These guys serve up the best coffee in the city, and anyone who tells you anything different is a big untrustworthy liar.
Everything is good, from the espressos to the cappuccinos to the more niche stuff. But for a good all-round flavorfest, try their coffee tasting board, which features various types of interesting stuff.
They also do good salads and brunch food, and lots of tasty egg-based treats.
The cafe is in a glass-fronted building, and has a spacious outdoor area for sipping and slurping in summer. I love this place, and I can’t recommend it enough. Yeah, it’s not in the heart of the city, but it’s totally worth the trip.
2. Erti Kava
Also offering fantastic coffee, Erti Kava is right in the heart of the city, just off Rustaveli.
The red-and-white decor is cute and charming, the staff are always super friendly, and both the food and drinks are great. With a name translating to ‘one coffee,’ it’s a firm favorite for locals, travelers and expats, and it’s always busy.
It’s a good spot if you want tasty but healthy food—my favorites are the salmon scrambled eggs, and the salad bowl with bulgur and chicken.
There’s another Erti Kava in Vake. I’ve heard it’s good, but I haven’t been there myself.
3. Kvarts Coffee
For something really unique and unusual, head here.
Popular with tourists and gimmick-hunters, it’s famous for its on-site artists, who’ll scribble an image of your handsome face onto your coffee cup.
When you’ve ordered your drink, you can join the portrait queue… and ten minutes later, you’ll have a tasty treat in a bespoke cup. Best of all, the portraits are totally cheap (but you should leave a tip, you selfish miser).
It’s only a tiny place, and they don’t serve food or have a toilet. But the coffee is pretty tasty, the gimmick is unmissable, and it’s right in the middle of the central part of the city.
4. Shavi Coffee Roasters
Another top-quality-coffee offering in the center of the city, Shavi is one of the hippest joints in town, and it’s a nice place to pop yourself down with a book.
With its bright-white decor, sparse minimalism, and dog-friendly vibe, it’s really friendly and inviting, and lots of people reckon it offers some of the best coffee in the city. They roast all their own beans, they sell beans for at-home use, and they always play good music.
I think the coffee is a bit weak—but if you don’t like strong stuff, you’ll love the place.
5. Fabrika
Possibly the most well-known venue in the entire city, Fabrika is ten million things all rolled into one.
The central part of the complex is a sprawling hostel and cafe, but the attached courtyard is also home to cafes, restaurants, bars, a record store, a co-working place, a barbershop, millions of bohemians, and millions more stray dogs.
Have a wander around the place, and you’ll see why it’s an unmissable and alluring hipsterfest.
The central cafe area was once a great workspace, but it’s now a little more strict—only a small few tables are allocated for work. But if you can get there early in the morning, it’s still a great place to settle down with your laptop!
6. Lokal
Another of Tbilisi’s social epicenters, Lokal is one of my favorite places to hang out.
But it’s not really a cafe.
Instead, it’s a co-working space (and co-living space) that hosts loads of unique and unusual events. They have improv nights, weekly board game events, language-learning sessions, a crypto club, book swaps, barbecues, and a whole load of other interesting stuff.
For making friends and having fun, this is genuinely one of the best venues in the city. Don’t expect food or incredible coffee, but expect to leave with a smile on your face. Massively recommended.
7. Bagelin
If you like bagels, this place is genuinely a must-visit.
The bagels are outrageously tasty, with breakfast options, smoked salmon, oyster mushrooms, BLTs, and plenty more. My favorite is the horribly-named Hot Mess, which features chorizo, egg, and lots of spicy flavors.
Make sure you get yourself some silverware, cos most of the bagels are pretty sloppy.
Lots of the foods and flavors are locally-sourced, and the accompanying coffee is pretty good.
If you visit during a weekday, it’s always pretty quiet… so it’s a decent option for working on your laptop while you munch on your hole-filled food.
8. 144 Stairs
Most famous for its vertiginous views, 144 Stairs is perched at the top of… 144 stairs. If you want great panoramas of the city, it’s the best cafe on our list. Right beside Narikala Fortress, it’s in a perfect spot.
But it’s not all about the vivid vistas—the food and drinks here are always pretty good. They have nice meat and fish dishes, and some modern twists on Georgian classics.
If you’re just visiting the city for a few days, or if you’re showing the city to someone else, this is definitely one of our top picks. Oh, and they have lots of cats.
9. Cafe Maria Magdalina
Infamously difficult to find, Cafe Maria Magdalina’s Instagram page is home to an instructional video on how to find the place (yep, seriously).
But once you work your way through the labyrinth and into the difficult-to-find doors, you’re greeted with lots of classy eats and treats. While most places on this list have pretty laid-back food, the fayre at Maria Magdalina is a little more high-end.
Some favorites include chicken liver pate, the pickled feta bowl, the grilled halloumi, and the lovely brunch stuff. It’s the sort of place where the dishes look more like an edgy art installation than a meal.
10. Kiwi Cafe
This is the most well-known vegan spot in the city. It’s inviting and friendly, it’s right beside Liberty Square, and I have a vegetarian friend who loves the place
The food and drinks aren’t amazing, but the staff are nice, and there’s a diverse and varied menu of both sweet and savory treats. You get curry, falafel, wraps, burgers, and plenty more.
And get this—as an amoral meat eater, even I think the food is okay.
Other well-known vegan options in Tbilisi include Living Vino and Mama Terra, but I haven’t been to either of them.
11. Hurma
One of the most popular and well-known venues in the entire city, Hurma is always packed with locals, travelers, and long-term expats.
Most of the food is brunch-style, with crepes, waffles, scrambled eggs, oatmeal, sandwiches, avocado, and all the other stuff you’d usually expect. They also do lunch-style and dinner-style food, and great pastries and cakes.
It’s popular at all times of day—open from 9am until 10pm 7 days a week, it (like some of Tbilisi’s other cafes) even becomes a bit of a nightlife spot as the evening rolls on.
12. Daily Grind
One of the city’s newest additions to its ever-growing cafe scene, the Daily Grind opened up in 2022.
I haven’t yet been, but I’ve heard it has some of the best coffee in the city (so it won’t be long before I go).
Right beside Liberty Square, it’s a pretty small place, so don’t expect to hang around for long. But expect a variety of different beans, teas and coffees, some tasty sweets and cakes, and early opening times (well, it opens at 8am, which is early for Tbilisi).
If it’s not good, don’t blame me—blame the misguided hype instead.
13. Kikliko
Head here for the best brunch in the city.
One of my favorite venues in the whole of Tbilisi, the mainly-egg-based dishes are tasty, the coffee is great, they have lots of juices, the prices are surprisingly low for this part of town, and they always play techno music (yep, that’s Tbilisi for you).
And they honestly have some of the smiliest, most charming staff in the entire city. I want to be friends with them all.
If you can nab a seat in the three-table garden, I totally recommend it. It’s leafy, laid-back and green, and it’s popular with the city’s ever-friendly stray dogs.
14. Santino
I discovered this place really recently, when I told my friend I was missing the Vietnamese coffee I used to guzzle on when I was living in Hanoi.
They’re the only place in Tbilisi where I’ve seen Vietnamese coffee on the menu… and the stuff they have is great. Other unusual offerings include Thai coffees, Indian twists, Italian oddities, and lots more unique stuff.
They even have decaf, which is a bit of a rarity in Tbilisi, where coffee function is more important than flavor.
If you’re exclusively looking for tasty and interesting coffee, this is absolutely one of the best cafes in Tbilisi.
Best Cafes in Tbilisi for Coworking
15. Gloria Jean’s, Marjanishvili
Okay, I know this isn’t the most inspiring entry on our list—Gloria Jean’s is a pretty uninteresting chain, and depending on where you’re from, you’ve probably visited loads of them in your life.
But I spend a lot of time working in Tbilisi’s cafes… and of them all, this is one of my favorites.
It’s light and airy, the coffee is pretty good (especially for a chain), they’re happy to let you work here for hours, and there’s a big table at the back where you can sit with your co-working cronies.
If your priority is being productive, this really is, against all odds, one of the best cafes in Tbilisi.
16. Gloria Jean’s, Liberty Square
Continuing the Gloria Jean’s trend, here’s another branch of the chain, where you’ll get exactly the same food and drink at exactly the same prices.
Right in the heart of Liberty Square, this is as central as Tbilisi’s cafes get.
Perfect for summer, it has a cute seating area at the back, and it’s a little bigger than its cousin in Marjanishvili.
And again, it’s always full of laptop-toting remote workers, so you won’t feel bad if you sit here for a few hours. However long you stay, the staff really don’t care.
17. Prospero’s Bookshop
Half cafe half bookstore, Prospero’s is charming and quaint, and it’s a well-known spot for people seeking English-language books. But it’s also a nice place for work—small, peaceful, quiet and central, it’s a big ol’ slice of productivity fuel.
Because it’s small and they don’t want you indefinitely taking up too much space, they have a strict rule… you need to spend at least 10 lari per hour if you sit yourself down with a laptop.
But considering the tasty cakes and coffees, and the nice atmosphere, I think that’s a perfectly-fair price.
18. Books from Past
Another bookstore-based cafe, Books From Past is less famous than Prospero’s, but I think it’s a better place to work. The coffee is better, the food is more varied, and it has a more productive atmosphere.
Tucked away, and hidden inside a house, this place is never very busy… so it’s great if you’re seeing a peaceful spot. To gain access, you need to press a little buzzer.
On a nice day, it’s one of the best places to work in the whole of Tbilisi—they have a lovely sunny terrace with lots of pretty plants.
19. Stamba
More books!
Stamba is home to lots of stuff: a library, a bookstore, a hotel, a multimedia museum, and lots of different places to eat and drink.
But judging from the name of this article, you’re probably here to learn about the cafe. So here’s what you can expect from the place: they have great brunch, excellent modern twists on traditional Georgian food, and some nice local ingredients.
The only real downside is that the cafe is pretty dimly-lit (which seems to be a weird Tbilisi trend). So expect to do lots of squinting and sighing.
20. Sol Cafe
A relatively new addition to the Tbilisi cafe scene, Sol is really popular with some of my co-working friends. I’ve only visited the place a couple of times, but it’s a great spot.
The staff are friendly, the big windows make the place super sunny, and lots of the food is really healthy. And as a relatively new hangout, it’s never particularly busy… but it won’t be too long until it is.
They offer breakfast all day (it’s all standard brunch-style fayre, but very well-executed), and they have a nice small terrace.
21. Nair Nairi
For an alluring combination of good views, big tables, nice drinks, and a work-friendly atmosphere, this really is one of the best cafes in Tbilisi.
One of the city’s many teahouses, they have a massive menu of probably around 50 different teas. They also offer okay coffee, pretty good food, a nice balcony, a bizarre mixture of strange decor, and an always-quiet atmosphere.
This is one of my favorite picks for work, and I’m usually here a couple of times a month. The music is good, the staff are laid-back, and no-one seems to mind if you hang around for hours.
22. Althaus
Right around the corner from Nair Nairi, Althaus is owned by the exact same team as its nearby neighbor.
Because of that, the vibe is similar, the furniture is similar, and the food and drink is identical. So, again, it’s a great choice if you’re on the hunt for tasty and varied tea… and some staff-led recommendations on what you might like.
This place is a little busier and more well-known than Nair Nairi, and the views aren’t as pretty. But if you prefer to work in a slightly-noisier spot, this is the teahouse for you.
23. Teahouse in the Garden
A third venue with the same menu, Teahouse in the Garden is once again owned by the same team as both Althaus and Nair Nairi.
A really great work-friendly place, it’s always full of students who are studying, learning, and pretending to do both of those things while they actually just socialize.
Pretty difficult to find, it’s in the grounds of Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University—but wander for a while and you’ll stumble upon it.
They have a huge outdoor seating area with lots of sheltered tables, perfect if you want to work outside without your armpits getting all sweaty and your laptop exploding.
24. Satatsuri
I’m working in Satatsuri right now (well, as I write this, but maybe not as you read it).
A 2-second walk away from Fabrika, I honestly have no idea why this place isn’t more popular.
It’s a great spot for good background music, and some healthy but tasty food—I always slurp on a kombucha (like a little hipster), and order the chicken and avocado salad (like a little hipster).
Quiet, cozy and calm, it’s a perfect place for working—although it’s not your typical work-style spot, you never feel like you’re taking up a table.
Before You Go
So there they are—the 24 best cafes in Tbilisi!
If you want to know anything else about Georgia’s incredible capital city, check out my guides to the best luxury hotels in Tbilisi, the best restaurants in Tbilisi, where to eat a delicious breakfast in Tbilisi, the places with the absolute best pizza in Tbilisi, and all the top reasons you should visit the city.
Also check out my guide about snow in Tbilisi and what to do when it’s cold or snowy out there.
Thanks for reading, see you next time, and make sure you keep coming back to Travelness for more!
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