The Paris-based chef Rose Chalalai Singh doesn’t remember when she first saw the work of Niko Pirosmani, only the awe it inspired in her. Born in 1862, the self-taught Georgian artist painted animals, portraits and scenes of country life, including rustic outdoor banquets. In one work, “Feast at Vintage Time” (date unknown), men with mustaches sit Last Supper style on the far side of a table covered with a white cloth while a waiter presents them with a roast bird and a trio of musicians serenades them. On the left side of the tableau, a man stomps on grapes to make more wine, and on the right, a bear walks on its hind legs. This is Singh’s favorite type of Pirosmani painting. “It’s all about celebration and hosting and imagination,” she says. The piece illustrates a supra, or a traditional Georgian feast, but also shows the kind of gathering — memorable for both its food and bonhomie — that she tries to create herself.
Singh is best known for opening the Paris restaurants Ya Lamaï and Rose Kitchen, beloved for their homey but perfectly executed dishes such as pomelo salad, mango sticky rice, steamed sea bass with Thai herbs and coconut pudding. In 2023 she decided to transform the latter, now set in a former sculpture studio in the Bastille, into a headquarters for her consulting and catering outfit as well as a private dining space. The shift away from daily service has allowed Singh, 45, to follow her instincts in less expected directions. Earlier that year, she traveled to Georgia to stay with her friend Keti Toloraia, 44, a co-founder of the Tbilisi interior design firm Rooms Studio. On the first day of her trip, Singh visited the Georgian National Gallery and lingered over the works by Pirosmani. “She was obsessed, talking only about him,” says Toloraia.
Then Singh got an idea: What if she hosted a party that recreated elements of Pirosmani’s feast paintings, right down to the roast pig, yellow flowers and maybe even the view of mountains in the distance? She ran it by George Ramishvili, 58, the founder of Silk Road Group, a Georgian investment company with a hospitality arm, who gamely offered up the nearly 200-acre Tsinandali Estate, in the country’s winemaking province of Kakheti. Irakli Asatiani, 38, the executive chef at Silk Hospitality, agreed to collaborate on the food. So, last July, Singh set off for Georgia again, to be with friends old and new.
In the lead-up to the meal, Singh, Asatiani and their assistants gathered ingredients, prepared dough, marinated meat and preheated the tone, a traditional round oven where they cooked a suckling pig stuffed — in an example of Thai-Georgian fusion — with lemongrass and lime leaves. In the late afternoon, at a long table positioned beneath an oak tree, the guests feasted, talked, laughed and eventually danced.
The attendees: Over the years, many of Toloraia’s friends have become Singh’s too, which made this meal a reunion of what Singh calls her Georgian family. In addition to Toloraia and Toloraia’s husband, the architect Lado Maissaia, and business partner, Nata Janberidze, Singh counts Ramishvili and Asatiani among this group. Also present were the garden designer Tatuka Japaridze, the actress Natia Parjanadze and the education consultant Nutsa Kuridze. Singh’s 15-year-old son, Gabriel, Ramishvili’s children and other kids congregated at one end of the table. “It was beautiful to have different generations,” says Singh.
The table: “I looked at the paintings and said, ‘What do I need?’ and then I made a list,” says Singh. Because a white tablecloth was crucial, she traveled with a couple of linen ones that the Japanese housewares line Lefts had produced for Rose Kitchen. The table itself, along with the plates and the Rooms Studio-designed aluminum cups, were provided by the estate. Nina Charles, a floral designer who used to work out of the same building that houses Rose Kitchen, roamed the estate cutting flowers, which she mixed with those she’d purchased at a Tbilisi market. In homage to Pirosmani’s yellow blooms, there were sunflowers, gladiolus and mullein.
The food: A funny debate arose when Singh insisted they serve melon slices like in many of Pirosmani’s paintings, and Asatiani asked, “What melon slices?” Eventually, he realized she was referring to pieces of Kakhetian shoti, an oblong-shaped bread that’s upturned at the ends because it’s cooked on the curved sides of a tone. So they made shoti, as well as a number of other Georgian dishes: a tomato, cucumber and onion salad with walnut dressing; whipped nadugi cheese with mint; khinkali (dumplings); imeruli khachapuri (cheese bread); chilled adjapsandali, a vegetable stew; veal skewers; and chakapuli, or lamb cooked with plums and white wine. “It was like a cooking class for me,” says Singh. Still, melon appeared in the form of her watermelon salad drizzled with tamarind sauce and topped with bonito flakes. It was “a cultural exchange from each side,” says Asatiani, who notes that Thai and Georgian food cultures are alike in that “they’re both about sharing.” Naturally, then, the dishes were served family style — with the help of waiters wearing crisp white aprons, as in the paintings.
The drinks: A supra is meant to be replete with wine and toasts, and this one was no exception. The adult guests chose between an array of options from Tsinandali Estate, including a full-bodied red and a dry white made from native Georgian rkatsiteli and mtsvane grapes. After dinner, they had chacha, a Georgian grappa, while the underage clinked glasses of lemonade and kompot, a sweet drink made by boiling berries and other fruits.
The music: Ramishvili booked a five-man folk band who wore traditional woolen coats accessorized with daggers. They performed a collection of polyphonic songs, singing on and off for hours. It’s the kind of music, says Toloraia, that “goes deep in your heart.” The dancing was prompted by a playlist created by a guest, the architect Gogiko Sakvarelidze, that featured selections by the Georgian singers Inola Gargulia and Nani Bregvadze (Sakvarelidze’s grandmother), along with the Cure, the Cardigans, A Tribe Called Quest and others.
The conversation: The group talked about past trips to the Georgian countryside and beyond, as well as the Telegraph, a new Tbilisi hotel managed by Silk Hospitality; after touring the Soviet Modernist building in March of 2024, Singh agreed to consult on the in-house Thai restaurant. There was also a lot of excitement over the setting. “‘Look where we are, look where we are,’” Singh remembers her guests exclaiming, adding “We were really in the moment.”
An entertaining tip: Singh prefers dining under shady trees rather than using an umbrella, which she says, “doesn’t make it beautiful.” Electric lights, she feels, can also often interfere with the natural beauty of the surroundings. So, as the sun set, she lit beeswax candles that had been made at a nearby monastery, and that she’d arranged in empty wine bottles.
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