A cultural journey: With Stumara, husband-and-wife team brings Georgian cuisine to Wheeling

Inconspicuously tucked away in a strip mall in Wheeling, Stumara is bringing flavors and culture from halfway around the world in Georgia to the suburbs.

It’s a cuisine most people don’t know much about, from a country they also don’t know much about. But husband and wife Bidzina Bregadze and Tamta Sanodze try to be more than just the owners of the award-winning Stumara — they’re your guides on a cultural journey at what is the suburbs’ only strictly Georgian restaurant.

“Our restaurant is not just about the food,” Bregadze said. “When our guests enter, they are not only getting food and wine, which are both great, they get a new cultural experience.”

The couple immigrated to Wheeling from Georgia about four years ago. With no restaurant experience, they started their culinary journey with a small bakery, Pirosmani Georgian Food Art, in 2021 before opening Stumara next door at 847 W. Dundee Road last April.

“We love this small town a lot and we love that it gives us a chance to let people try a little taste of Georgia,” Sanodze said.

The long, narrow restaurant seats about 50. Colorful fabrics on the chairs give life to the space, and the walls are adorned with a custom wallpaper featuring text from a 12th-century poem, “The Knight in the Panther’s Skin,” the national epic poem of Georgia.

“People don’t have a lot of information about this small country, our culture, our food and wine,” Sanodze said. “I’m Georgian. It’s very important for me to share how I love it and I want others to fall in love with it.”

Don’t worry if you can’t pronounce the menu items — there’s no judgment and all the descriptors for each item are easy to understand. And while the names and presentations may be unfamiliar, the ingredients, aside from some Georgian herbs and spices they have specially imported, are ones people know.

“Nothing from the moon,” Bregadze jokes.

Everything on the menu is made from scratch — there aren’t any suppliers selling frozen shortcuts when it comes to Georgian cuisine.

While Sanodze was happy to describe each dish in detail, she insisted the food is better understood when eaten. It was time for a makeshift supra — a Georgian tradition of community and connection where friends and family come together with food and wine and are led in toasts by a Tamada, or toastmaster.

Since it would be rude to argue with your host, a parade of plates were marched out from the kitchen.

We started with the adjaruli khachapuri, affectionately known as a cheese boat. The canoe-shaped bread boats are loaded with melted cheese and an egg on top, which a server mixes in tableside. Then you rip your boat apart and watch it sink in a sea of cheese.

From there a plate of khinkali came out. They’re essentially the biggest soup dumplings you’ve ever seen. Ours were filled with pork. And while the finger food is very indelicate to eat, they are delicious.

The cold appetizers included badrijani nigzvit — fried eggplant stuffed with spicy garlic and walnut paste, of which I was particularly fond — and the pkhali plate with mchadi, which are dense little cakes each made from spinach, beet leaves or leek leaves, served with warm cornbread.

The flow of food, which is traditionally served family style, didn’t stop. A Georgian salad came out with the cold appetizers, featuring cucumbers and tomatoes in kakhuri unrefined oil, complemented by a creamy herb sauce and pickled jonjoli (quick Google on jonjoli says it’s a key part of Georgian cuisine made from the flower buds of the bladdernut shrub).

Then came the entrées. First, the megruli Kharcho with ghomi, which are very tender beef cheeks served in a savory broth on a bed of cornmeal porridge.

Then came the shilaplavi with lamb chops, which are brought out in a wooden box that’s opened at the table. As the smoky scent billows out, the server places the chops, seasoned with a piquant horseradish sauce and a unique peanut salt, on a plate of shilaplavi, a creamy, risotto-like dish.

Not sure if it was an afterthought or a strategy, but a plate with tapis khachapuri came out with the entrées. The dish is best described as a buttery and flaky quesadilla. It was the perfect complement to the entrées.

Sanodze’s love for her country’s food is exceeded by her passion for the wine and a Georgian winemaking tradition that is over 8,000 years old.

The grapes are fermented in qvevri, huge clay vessels buried underground, then aged there for as little as a couple of weeks or as long as over a year. The wine is aged from that point on in the bottle. As a result of the clay, white wine turns an amber color.

“It’s something special. The qvevri gives it a unique taste you cannot have from other countries,” she said. “I’m trying to make it more popular here.”

Not only has the restaurant been a hit with the public in its first year, industry insiders have taken notice.

Stumara recently took home a 2025 Jean Banchet Award as Best Heritage Restaurant. The Banchets honor culinary excellence in the Chicago area and are almost uniformly won by restaurants in the city.

Sanodze, for whom English is at least a third language, said she was at a loss for words to describe how she felt.

“It was huge,” she said. “I can’t explain what a great feeling it was (when they called Stumara’s name at the awards). My knees were shaking and I could barely get to the stage. Oh my God, it was great.”