Giorgi Andghuladze has no problem walking a fine line between respecting and reinventing, particularly when it comes to the foods of his native Georgia—the country, not the state. The menu at his Craft Wine Restaurant in Tblisi—an homage to the earthy orange wines revered here—is a long list of tweaked classics any Georgian would recognize.

Until the food hits their plate. That’s when you realize something is deliciously amiss. There might be butter instead of cream, or garlic poached whole instead of minced and scattered, nods to Andghuladze’s love of French and Italian cooking.

And sometimes he takes things in the other direction, deploying iconically Georgian ingredients to reimagine dishes from elsewhere. Precisely what he’d done the night I ducked out of a chilly rainstorm to dine in the amber glow of the thousands of bottles of wine that line his restaurant’s walls.

A basket of flatbread and a bowl of something creamy to dip it in. Georgian hummus, Andghuladze explained. Hummus? I wasn’t familiar with a tradition of hummus in these parts, I said.

There isn’t for Georgia. But there is for Andghuladze. “Hummus is one of my favorite dishes. I eat hummus every day.” So when he decided to open Craft Wine Restaurant three years ago, he knew he wanted a hummus on the menu. Something that acknowledged the dish’s Middle Eastern roots, but also respected his Georgian heritage.

“I needed a tahini,” he explained. “So that’s where I started. In Georgian cuisine, we don’t use sesame seeds. But we have tons of sunflower seeds and sunflower oil. So I blended them into a tahini.”

They also don’t use many chickpeas, so for those he substituted kidney beans. And to further nudge his hummus into familiar terrain, he seasoned it with a mix of adjika—a pepper sauce seasoned with coriander and fenugreek—and Svanari salt, a spice blend made from fresh garlic, caraway, dill, mint and red pepper flakes.
In place of the usual finishing drizzle of olive oil, Andghuladze used more sunflower oil. And to be clear, I’ve never tasted sunflower oil like this. It was so rich and savory, I swore it was toasted sesame oil.

The result was rich, creamy and light, a hummus that perfectly echoed the comfort of a dish we all know, yet distinctly reflected the flavors of Georgia. Quite assuredly, respected and reinvented.