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Wine List of the Week: DakaDaka

13 April 2026 By Douglas Blyde

On ever-changing Heddon Street, DakaDaka brings Georgian cooking and wine culture into Mayfair. It’s “convincing in the glass,” according to Douglas Blyde, even as the kitchen finds its footing.

Just off Regent Street, Heddon Street compresses London’s dining ambition into a narrow strip with the turnover of a West End casting call. DakaDaka occupies number 10, an address which has repeatedly acted as a launchpad. The site once housed Magpie, and later a Crown Estate-backed incubator which sent early versions of Manteca and Fallow out into the city proper.

London discovered Georgian wine long before it developed much appetite for Georgian cooking, yet in Georgia the two are inseparable. Into this restless slot arrives a Georgian restaurant and natural wine bar from Giorgi Mindiashvili and Mitz Vora, translating the ritual generosity of the Georgian supra into a Mayfair register. Reception has already divided London. David Ellis titled his review “How do I loathe thee?”, objecting to tannic Georgian wines and uneven cooking, while Wallpaper framed the project as distilling “8,000 years of Georgian tradition” into contemporary London restaurant form.

Interiors by Katya Samsonadze of Communal Design Studio introduce limewashed walls, dark beams and a Persian marble counter. A painting by Georgian artist Niko Pirosmani hangs. Bare bulbs illuminate the dining room, supplemented by tall candles. Music drifts through Riga-born electronic, including “Le début de la fin” by Domenique Dumont.

The room keeps its workings a little too visible. The pot wash sits in plain sight while a Cadillac-sized wine fridge occupies the opposite wall. Others have complained of ineffective extraction from the open kitchen. While the latter didn’t encroach on our enjoyment, tables are simply too small for genuine sharing, and the back of house appears to have been fitted in by negotiation. On our visit, the downstairs bar counter had been commandeered for fish preparation, which sent a brief, silvery dart of surprise.

Drinks

The list is directed by Honey Spencer, formerly responsible for wine at The Palomar, The Barbary and Evelyn’s Table before opening Sune in Hackney with partner, Charlie Sims. Earlier stages of her career ranged from Fifteen London to a posting at Noma Mexico. Author of Natural Wine, No Drama, Spencer positions Georgian wine not as an exotic aside but as the house language.

Her charismatic approach rests on immersion. Spencer travelled across Georgia with her infant daughter alongside the restaurant’s owners to understand the country’s wine culture at ground level. Several house wines now appear under the DakaDaka label, blended by Spencer from Kakheti fruit including Pirveli-sourced Kisi and Khikhvi.

Georgia does not simply produce wine. It builds life around it. During a visit to the country a few years ago, including a meeting with President Salomé Zourabichvili, the centrality of the table became immediately apparent to us. Wine is less a beverage than a social architecture. Spencer’s list appears designed with that sensibility in mind.

The cellar runs to roughly 150 bottles organised as a geographic survey. Producers such as Pheasant’s Tears and Archil Guniava appear alongside wines from regions rarely encountered in UK restaurants including Samegrelo and Racha-Lechkhumi. Nude glassware, for which Spencer is an ambassador, suits the tensile structure of qvevri wines well.

The opening entries lean toward accessibility. The house Kisi delivers citrus and orchard fruit while Ori Marani’s Pet Nat Rkatsiteli introduces a lightly sparkling counterpoint. Dakishvili’s traditional-method Pinot Noir provides a reminder that Georgian producers experiment beyond indigenous varieties.

Then an international section offers a landing point for guests not yet ready to plunge directly into the Caucasus. Carricante from Sicily sits beside Loire wines from Hervé Villemade and a Volnay Premier Cru from Domaine de Montille. Then suddenly a Côtes du Rhône, as though someone briefly remembered that Mayfair diners occasionally require something reassuringly ordinary. Perfectly respectable certainly, though beside Ojaleshi from Samegrelo it feels almost apologetically predictable.

The spirits selection can feel frustratingly conservative, with Tanqueray appearing alongside Georgian Sarajishvili brandy.

Dishes

The kitchen is led by chef-patron, Mitz Vora, working with head chef, Adrian Hernandez Farina (Humo, Canal, Chiltern Firehouse). Their cooking centres on charcoal and wood fire, translating Georgian dishes through London produce.

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Dishes included chvishtari, a round of cornbread enriched with Westcombe cheddar, maize and green chilli, crisp edged and soft within. Lobio follows. Made from kidney beans rather than chickpeas, the purée appeared almost pâté-like in texture, crowned with pumpkin seeds and ringed with ajika chilli crisp whose red oil slowly bled into the beans.

Badrijiani brought grilled baby aubergines over sunflower seed tahini, their flesh softened to collapse, and lifted by confit garlic and herbs. The khinkali, filled with girolles, shiitake and so-called hedgehog funghi, proved gloriously unruly. Georgian dumplings trap broth within their folds, so the correct method is to lift them by the twisted knot and release the liquid with a careful bite before finishing the parcel. Even with warning, gravity negotiated messily.

From the grill came lamb kababi cooked over open coals on shampuri, while kubdari khachapuri delivered blistered bread stuffed with Iberico pork and seasoned with Svaneti salt.

The largest plate, shila plavi, brought octopus, squid and a few fragments of prawn over rice enriched with a bisque. Visually it suggested paella rather than the Caucasus, and the flavours followed it south.

Alongside the savoury dishes came sweeter kurdznis salati, a grape salad of radicchio, Castel Franco, St Tola cheese and honeycomb which restored brightness after the grill.

Spencer kept the glasses moving. Blue Donkey Pet Nat, followed by Dakishvili Brut Zero Pinot Noir. A house Kisi blend from Pirveli vineyards showed pear and stone fruit, while Igavi from western Georgia offered altitude freshness.

Amber wines arrived in contrasting styles. Pheasant’s Tears Poliphonia 2022, a field blend of around one hundred varieties associated with artist, forager, and winemaker, John Wurdeman, carried a story. Spencer explained it was the final bottle she possessed, protected until this lunch in the cupboard beneath the stairs at home. Later came a bottle from Samegrelo whose label stated bluntly that 20% of Georgia is occupied by Russia, a political note which read less like provocation than fact.

Dessert had to be skipped for lack of time. Toward the close of the meal a newly hired Georgian member of the team appeared, clearly well versed in the country’s cooking traditions. Her arrival sharpened a question which had hovered over the meal. Had some of the dishes been softened for a local audience?

A final taste nonetheless appeared in the form of Kindzmarauli, the naturally semi-sweet Saperavi from Kvareli which many Georgians will recognise instantly. An offer of chacha followed. This traditional Georgian pomace spirit, distilled in a manner similar to grappa, was politely declined given the hour.

Last Sip

Spencer’s list carries drinkers across Kakheti, Imereti and Samegrelo with real momentum, and staff clearly relish her presence. One remarked at the close that they wished she could appear more often than her schedule allows.

The kitchen proves less certain of itself. Georgia’s table culture is among the world’s most generous. It resists polite reduction. Heartier dishes designed for larger-format sharing might land more convincingly here, alongside a rethink of the layout, including larger tables. A light touch of the supra’s ritual would also be welcomed.

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