Sofia Melnikova’s Fantastic Douqan — Restaurant in Tbilisi

TL: DR; Don’t go here if you want to be treated with respect

My wife and I have been frequent visitors to Sofia Melnikova’s Fantastic Douqan. We enjoyed the atmosphere and the food and, in turn, made sure to leave good tips for the experience and share a good word with Georgian relatives and English-speaking friends. But we never quite grasped what stands behind the name. Thankfully, after my mom's last visit to this esteemed establishment, it is all clear to me now: “Fantastic” stands for fantastic disappointment and unprofessionalism of the staff.

My poor mother had to experience this firsthand when she went there to make a sizeable takeaway order for us. She then tried to approach the waiter, Dani. Dani (who, by the way, was our waiter when we were here together and was moderately pleasant and attentive then) replied rudely: «У нас не говорят по-русски» (which means we don't speak Russian. In perfect Russian.) and threw the menu on the table before leaving promptly. My mother has poor eyesight, and all her attempts to get the staff's attention were futile. She had to leave the place after being unattended for 30 minutes, with no food and in a terrible mood. There must have been a misunderstanding then; perhaps my mom did not express her intentions clearly, or the waiter had a bad day — I thought. But when I rushed to the place to make amends, I was proven otherwise. Dani did not even remember the episode, and I had to remind him “who he was rude to” today as if this is a usual occurrence to be selectively rude to customers:

“The one speaking Russian, remember?” He did remember now. He said, “Maybe that is why [I was rude]” with a smile on his face. Well, Dani, I hope you are still smiling. Your behavior is not different from the ones you so despise. My friends and family and the community I have outreach to, too, will...

I put one star just for location - the outside terrace is great but it's the one and only advantage of this place. The service is bad, staff is unfriendly. we came with a baby sleeping in the stroller and we were the only clients so far. The waiters were laughing super loud and putting elecronic acid music making it louder even though they saw we were with a sleeping child. amazing service :-/ But most importantly, the food... Oh God, it was such a disappointment. Since we're locals we've visited almost all restaurants in Tbilisi, not kiddin')) This was just a joke. what can be easier to cook than a Georgian salad? Oh my, it was simply not tasty, that's all. tomatoes were ice cold, 1 small lonely leaf of parsley... Khinkali were worse than we cook at home (i mean those at our home are frozen from the shop around the corner). But the final blow was Shkmeruli and Chakhobili. DO NOT EVER ORDER ANY OF THESE HERE. Chakhobili was a huge piece of super dry chicken breast in tomato sauce, like warm ketchup - no garlic, no greens and unchewable. Shkmeruli even worse.. For it's my favourite georgian meal ever, I've literally tried it everywhere. It was absolutely disgusting. 35 Lari for dry chicken meat in acid liquid sour cream - gosh. It's the worst shkmeruli in Tbilisi, trust me. Don't waste your money, the place is absolutely not worth visiting at all. better choose another one - luckily, there's no problem with really yummy...

Visiting this place was a complete disappointment. It all started with the fact that no waiter came to our table for what must have been half an hour. Then one finally showed up - confused and clearly unhappy - and took our order. The wait for the food was EXTREMELY long. I ordered six khinkali, but waiter brought only five.

The waiter approached the table with annoyed face. If there was a menu on the table, they would gesture irritably for us to move it so they could use place.

The food was absolutely terrible. The khinkali were tasteless, the “Siberian” dumplings were awful, meat was hard to chew, and the khachapuri was the worst I’ve ever had. Without exaggeration, every single dish was disgusting and flavorless. Even the wine was unpleasant.

To top it all off, they charge a ridiculous 18% service fee - for what exactly?

The place itself is beautiful and has an authentic atmosphere, but that’s about the only positive thing I can say. Honestly, this was the worst restaurant I’ve visited in Tbilisi. It was so bad I wouldn’t even pay a single lari for that experience. The food was awful, and the staff were unpleasant...