Rioni (Georgian Restaurant), Turku

This is an interesting and very comfortable Georgian restaurant that offers an extensive menu plus a good selection of bottled beers, wines by the glass and other drinks. The staff were really helpful, informative, and welcoming towards Bertie. We have very limited experience with this type of cuisine and have only visited Rioni in Turku once and their Tampere branch twice, but we thought the food was excellent and will definitely go back when we have a chance.

The menu offers a wide-selection of interesting and delicious sounding (and smelling) choices with many vegetarian options. There is a section of cold starters, warm starters and snacks, breads, dips, mains, and desserts. While there were a lot of dishes that we really wanted to try, we came for a late-lunch and did not want to eat too much as we planned to go out for dinner. We opted for two types of Georgian dumplings (Khinkali) and the house bread with cheese filling (Imeruli Khachapuri) and washed it down with a bottle of Georgian beer each (Argo lager, €9). We had the meat dumplings (€10) and the mushroom dumplings (€9), both of which were very tasty, but the meat ones were more flavourful in our opinion. They are not a dainty or thin dumpling but were very good and surprisingly filling. The cheese bread (€10) was to die for! We could have happily stayed a while and eaten a stack of them while quaffing more of the very nice beer, but as I say, we had dinner plans.  

We thought everything was very tasty and good value for money. The Bill was €47 for two beers and three food dishes, and we left very satisfied and much fuller than we imagined.

All in all, while our experience is very limited, great food and drinks, lovely atmosphere, and very friendly, helpful and welcoming staff. Highly recommended.