Sometimes we go down to Greenwich Village in search of something fresh and interesting to eat. More often than not, we will find ourselves on 8th Street,
Between Sixth Avenue and Broadway are a Chipotle, a Dunkin’ Donuts’, and a Domino’s Pizza. While quite popular, these are not the only eateries there. There are a lot of decent Indie restaurants hidden in between.
The biggest problem with good indie restaurants is that they don’t always stay open long term. As soon as you find a good Persian restaurant, they close up and you find a Japanese restaurant in its place. Or the nice bakery you just started frequenting is suddenly replaced by a Sushi place.
The Cafedelia is a deceptively simple Georgian restaurant with just 12 seats. Cafedelia just set up shop at the Sunshine Hummus kitchen.
The little café offers all the hearty meals and cheesy breads you would expect to find in a New York Georgian restaurant.
Owners Zurab Kikiani and Ramaz KIknadze partnered to create a fast-casual take on their traditional Georgian takeout shop Georgian Deli and Bakery, located in Bath Beach.
We were cognizant of the fact that Indie restaurants on 8th Street are transient, and we took the precaution of ordering everything on the menu of the Cafedelia. After all, tomorrow never comes.
We were not disappointed. Everything on the menu was either good or really good. We found the chicken meatball soup luxurious and skilfully enhanced with herbs.
We found their chashushuli (spicy beef soup) to die for. It was served with mashed potatoes, salad, and pickle sides.
We were particularly pleased with the adjaruli khachapuri which is a bread they bake on order. It is a canoe-shaped and stuffed with melted cheese and topped with egg yolk.
We also ordered khinkali – some juicy dumplings stuffed with meat and pleated. They definitely give xiao long bao soup dumplings some stiff competition.
Their honey-caramel cake was so good that it proved just how underrated Georgian sweets are. All in all, we were completely satisfied and impressed with everything. Cafedelia is now one of our favourite 8th Street indie restaurants. And we hope that it stays open for a long time to come so that we can remain happy patrons.
