Pancho Villa: Latin Spice Comes to Kakheti

The Mexican restaurant Pancho Villa comes as a complete surprise. It’s a warm and intimate hole-in-the-wall eatery with a wide-ranging menu and very decent prices. Except for the dishes made with avocado and the drinks containing tequila or Kahlua, all the food is made fresh with local produce. The proprietor is also the head chef. But perhaps the most surprising thing about Pancho Villa is its location – it’s not on Shardeni, it’s not on Perovskaya… rather, this gem of a Mexican restaurant is way off the beaten path in the medieval town of Sighnaghi, in the Kakheti region.

Shalva Mindorashvili, 31, is the owner and head chef at Pancho Villa. At first glance, Mindorashvili possesses a certain Ichabod Crane-like austerity. He is tall and spare, with a strong profile and an expression that is somber when his face is at rest. But this severe first impression is shattered as soon as he breaks into his patented face-splitting grin – something which he tends to do spontaneously and often.

I get the feeling that I’m onto something good when the first thing Mindorashvili wants to talk about is chocolate. In addition to the desserts already on the menu – including homemade coconut ice cream, Aztec oranges and flan – Pancho Villa is planning a weeklong chocolate festival for the winter holidays. Mindorashvili and his two formidable assistant chefs (Lia Mindorashvili – Shalva’s mother – and Eka Taralashvili) are in the midst of testing recipes to see which ones will make the grade. So far, they’ve identified chocolate-praline brulees, chocolate crepes with lime butter, profiteroles with chocolate sauce, chocolate peppermint sticks, and dark mocha roulades as possibilities. Two mocha roulades sit on a platter in the restaurant. They are each as long as my forearm, and are fetchingly dusted with powdered sugar. If the rapturous tone used by Mindorashvili as he describes the desserts is any indication, the recipe testing has been going very well.

Saperavi and Tapas: the new world order

Pancho Villa offers a spectrum of Mexican and Spanish entrees that range from the familiar (guacamole, burritos, cheese soup) to the moderately esoteric (migas, MichoacÑqn beef soup). Most dishes are under GEL 5 – the most notable exceptions being dishes made with avocados (around GEL 10) and the fish in cilantro (GEL 8). (Most of the GEL 5-and-under dishes come as Georgian-style moderate portions – and two dishes make for a very satisfying meal). Beverages include a fine local Saperavi wine for 50 tetri a glass, or a finer local Saperavi for GEL 1. Beverages made with imported alcohol are more expensive: margaritas cost GEL 9, and Coronas are GEL 6 a pop. By far the best deal in the house is the Tapas, which cost a mere 90 tetri per plate, and come in very generous portions.

But once the food arrives, the visitor realizes that Pancho Villa’s main draw isn’t the price – it’s definitely the food. The burritos come encased in a fresh, crepe-like tortilla. The potato omelet from the Tapas menu is a savory cloud of fluffy egg dotted with crispy potato morsels. The chicken in green chili is a pool of green spicy sauce thick with seared shredded chicken. The margarita is mostly tequila, but the sangria, made with local Saperavi wine, is not to be missed. The house chips are a bit on the thick side. Ask to have them heated, and you won’t be disappointed. And do not leave Pancho Villa without trying a hot chocolate. It comes in espresso-sized portions, and is terribly decadent – less of a liquid and more of a warm, richly spiced chocolate pudding with a hint of brandy. Wuff.

Everything in the restaurant – from the paint on the walls to the food on the plates – reflects Mindorashvili’s tastes and passions. Having selected everything on the menu, he says he doesn’t have a favorite dish. “I can’t say that I like one more or less. All have a place in my heart. Each delights me in a different way.”

Cosmopolitan culture outside of the capital

Mindorashvili also did the renovation and redesign work for Pancho Villa. When I asked what I thought was a simple question – how he chose the bright kiwi and adobe color scheme for his restaurant’s interior – he startled me by beginning his response with “Let’s start with the Soviet era…”

“Our people were discouraged from thinking about the world outside of the U.S.S.R. People were oppressed not just physically, but psychologically as well,” says Mindorashvili, describing a sort of box around himself with his hands. “So people withdrew into a kind of shell. Life lost meaning. Everyone was living just to survive.”

Mindorashvili shakes his head. “It’s just so boring just getting by,” he says. “Why live at all, if you’re just trying to survive? Where is the meaning in that? What’s the point? Something must keep you interested in life. If you’re not doing what your heart wants, why bother?”

In 2001, Mindorashvili traveled to the United States. He says that traveling helped open him to a sense of possibility and of other ways of thinking – and helped him to break out of the tunnel-vision that had made the world seem so closed off. He’d always felt a strong affinity for the warmth and color of the Latin world, and decided that he wanted to make it a bigger part of his life – and to share it with other people – by opening a restaurant.

A nation and a person have similar needs, Mindorashvili says. “We need to know about the world – about other foods, other traditions. We need to be worldly.” This is why he opened his restaurant. For Mindorashvili, Pancho Villa is about more than simply making a living. “I want to nourish people, to give them a place to go for warmth, good music, and interesting food. I want to make their lives more interesting – even if only for a couple of hours.”

As to why he chose to open the restaurant in Sighnaghi – rather than in a larger city, such as Tbilisi – Mindorashvili explains: “The country can’t be developed if the only culture is in the capital. When you create such things only in the city, the city becomes tavkombali [top heavy, like a tadpole]. Tbilisi has become bloated, unrecognizable.” There is a commercial reason as well: here in Sighnaghi there is little competition, and thus Pancho Villa burns more brightly than it would in Tbilisi.

Mindorashvili is but one of several artisans who chosen to do their work in Sighnaghi in order to demonstrate to other Georgians that “It is possible to stay in the villages and also to have culture and good society.” The choir Ensemble Zedashe, the folk dance ensemble Jleha, and a cadre of carpet-weavers, musicians and painters are but a few of the artisans who have put down roots in Sighnaghi.

When asked how his restaurant fits into this artistic milieu, Mindorashvili, replies, “All roads lead to Rome. If you can see what people enjoy in life, the first thing is good food. I want to get Tbilisi people to come to Sighnaghi for the food. And I want for Georgians to be more open, to be more lavish with their feelings. Consider that life is too short to stay reclusive and boring. Now is the time to open up and start living differently.”

When and How to Visit

Open 2 pm-10 pm Tuesday through Sunday. Closed Mondays, although it is possible to arrange to dine on Mondays by appointment. Contact Shalva Mindorashvili: 8255 3 15 11 (Restaurant) or 899 19 23 56 (mobile). (Shalva speaks english).

Marshrutkas run between Tbilisi and Sighnaghi several times day. Tbilisi-Sighnaghi Marshrutkas leave from the Samgori metro station parking lot at: 9:00; 11:00; 1:00; 3:00; 6:00. Sighnaghi-Tbilisi leave from in front of the Sighnaghi post office at: 7:00; 9:00; 11:00; 1:00; 3:00; 6:00. In Sighnaghi, buy your ticket at the ticket window (inside the red brick building that abuts the parking lot). One-way trips cost 5 GEL. Arrive early – marshrutkas leave as soon as they are full.

Pancho Villa is at 9 Queen Tamar Street. To get there from the marshrutka drop-off point in Sighnaghi, walk uphill to Hotel Sighnaghi – formerly the Hotel Nugo. (This hotel, not yet open, says it will begin receiving guests on Janary 1 2007). The main road downhill and to the right of Hotel Sighnaghi leads directly to the door of Pancho Villa.

Where to Stay

Guest accommodations (home-stays) can be arranged through Pancho Villa (please call ahead). Home-stays range in price from 10-15 GEL (lodging only) to 25-30 GEL (room and board) per person.

Visitors may also arrange to stay at Nana’s Family Hotel, which is located at 2 Saradjishvili Street in Sighnaghi’s picturesque city center. Call Nana Kokiashvili at 8255 3 18 29 (hotel) or 899 79 50 93 (mobile), or email her at Kkshvl@yahoo.com. Nana speaks some English, and the hotel (run from her home) is spacious, with hot water and clean, modern bathroom facilities. She can also arrange excursions to local sites of interest, including Bodbe Monastery (where St. Nino is buried) and Davit Gareji.

Published 15 Dec 06 in Georgia Today