Some dishes do not need much explanation. You smell the smoke, you see the meat sizzling, you hear the onions being sliced, and your body already knows what is happening.
In Georgia, that dish is mtsvadi.
Mtsvadi is Georgian BBQ at its most honest: good pork, fire, salt, pepper, onions, maybe a splash of something sharp and fruity, and not much else. It is the kind of food that does not try to impress you with technique. It simply stands there, full of smoke and confidence, and says: taste me.
And of course, I had to ask the obvious question. If Georgians eat mtsvadi with simple bread, and across the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean grilled meats are wrapped in lavash, flatbreads and other beautiful carriers of joy… So why not put Georgian pork BBQ into a proper Mexican corn tortilla?
So here we are: Mtsvadi Tacos. Georgian pork BBQ meets Mexican tortilla craft. Tkemali becomes salsa. Pork becomes taco filling. Two food cultures meet, smile at each other, and suddenly everything makes sense.
Here is my previous Georgian food post, where I touch on veggie dishes, wine pairings, and more. But let’s keep talking about mtsvadi tacos here.
Taco Lab #07: Mtsvadi Tacos
The question: Can Georgian mtsvadi become a proper taco without either turning it into some ridiculous fusion exercise or losing what makes mtsvadi so good in the first place?
So you guessed right, this time I wanted to test something slightly different. Not a Mexican technique or ingredient, but the actual logic of a taco.
If you take Georgian pork cooked over a fire, replace the bread with a proper corn tortilla, turn tkemali into salsa and add just enough acidity and crunch, does it actually work as a taco? Or have I simply put Georgian BBQ inside a tortilla and given it a new passport?
What Is Mtsvadi?
Mtsvadi is one of the Georgian food rituals. It is not just “grilled pork”. It is fire, friends, countryside, supra energy, smoke in your clothes, and that deeply satisfying moment when meat comes off the grill, and everyone suddenly becomes very focused.
Traditionally, mtsvadi is often made with pork, ideally slightly fatty, flavourful cuts that stay juicy over charcoal. The seasoning can be beautifully minimal: salt, pepper and onions are already enough when the meat is good. Some versions use pomegranate juice, wine, vinegar or aromatics, but the soul of the dish remains the same.
Good meat. Proper fire. No nonsense.
That is why Georgians love it.
There is nothing to hide behind. No heavy sauce, no complicated marinade, no overthinking. The quality of the ingredients does the talking.
And in that sense, mtsvadi has something very much in common with the best tacos in Mexico.
From Georgian BBQ to Mexican Tacos
Across this whole delicious belt of the world – Georgia, Turkey, the Caucasus, the Middle East, the Eastern Mediterranean – grilled meat and bread are old friends.
In Turkey, you have kebab with flatbread. In the Middle East, grilled meats often arrive with thin lavash or pita. In Georgia, mtsvadi usually comes with simple bread, raw onions, herbs, maybe tkemali or satsebeli sauces on the side.
Mexico, of course, has the tortilla. And not just any tortilla. A proper corn tortilla, made from masa: warm, fragrant, flexible, earthy, and ready to carry a lot of flavour.
So this is not a wild fusion for the sake of being clever. It is a very light adaptation. The logic is already there.
Protein + fire + bread + sauce + herbs = happiness.
The only real twist is that I am replacing the Georgian bread with a Mexican corn tortilla and letting Georgian tkemali behave like a Mexican salsa by adding jalapeño and lime.
That is it.
I mean no disrespect. And not adding any confusion. I’m creating a small bridge between two food cultures that already understand grilled meat very well.
The Sauce: Tkemali Becomes Salsa
Tkemali is one of Georgia’s great gifts to the world.
It is a sour plum sauce: sharp, fruity, herbal, sometimes garlicky, sometimes spicy, always refreshing. It cuts through fatty meat beautifully, which is exactly why it works so well with mtsvadi.
And if you think about it from a Mexican cooking perspective, tkemali is already halfway to becoming a salsa. It has acidity. It has fruit. It has brightness. It wakes up grilled meat. It makes you want another bite. And knowing that I can’t find tomatillos here to make a real salsa verde, this is a bloody perfect alternative.
For these tacos, I simply enriched green tkemali with:
jalapeño for fresh chilli heat
lime juice for extra zing
coriander for brightness
Suddenly, it becomes tkemali-jalapeño salsa: I think of it as still Georgian at heart, but with just enough Mexican energy to sit confidently inside a taco.
If you do not like tkemali, you can use a red salsa instead. My red salsa from the Salsa System page would work beautifully here, especially because it naturally reminds me of Georgian satsebeli, the spicy tomato sauce often served with grilled meats.
I was thinking about the famous Gaonera taco from El Califa de León, that beautiful idea of thinly sliced premium beef, cooked simply and served in a tortilla. It is minimal, almost elemental. Meat, tortilla, maybe a little salsa and the squeeze of lime. Nothing to hide. Everything to taste.
I wanted to make something in that spirit. But instead of beef ribeye, I found a lovely piece of pork ribeye. So I made my own little Georgian-Mexican detour: Gaonera de cerdo tacos.
Not traditional, of course. But very delicious.
What I Used
For this version, I made:
beet-infused corn tortillas (I wanted to add some colour to this taco as white sliced pork meat could look a bit anaemic, and I also wanted to check whether beet juice can be used to make a tortilla from scratch, and it did it perfectly well);
beetroot crema with cooked beetroot and cream cheese,
thin slices of pork ribeye,
green tkemali salsa with jalapeño and lime,
fresh coriander.
The beet tortilla made the taco look joyful before you even took a bite. The beet crema added earthiness and sweetness. The pork ribeye stayed juicy and rich. Then the tkemali-jalapeño salsa cut through everything with that sour, fruity, spicy brightness.
Gaonera de Cerdo TacoPork Ribeye Taco
It was not exactly mtsvadi in the traditional sense. It was more of an inspired taco: Georgian flavours, Mexican format, and a little nod to one of the most famous minimalist tacos in Mexico.
And honestly, it worked. It felt elegant, playful and a little bit cheeky.
Test #1: How Far Can I Push the Idea?
So my first version went quite far from mtsvadi. Pork ribeye, beet tortilla, beetroot crema, tkemali-jalapeño salsa. It looked fantastic and tasted very good. But there was already a problem with my experiment: was I testing a mtsvadi taco anymore?
Probably not. This became more of a Georgian-Mexican taco inspired by Gaonera than mtsvadi translated into taco form.
But let’s not stop there.
Experiment 2: Proper Mtsvadi Taco
The second version was more direct.
This was the real idea: Georgian pork BBQ in a Mexican tortilla.
I cut the pork into cubes, closer to the way you would prepare mtsvadi. Then I kept the marinade very simple:
pork pieces
salt
black pepper
thinly sliced onions
That is all.
This is important. A minimal marinade only underlines the importance of good ingredients. There is nothing to cover up. The pork has to be good. The cooking has to be good. The tortilla has to be good. The sauce has to lift everything, not bury it.
I grilled the pork until it was nicely charred outside but still juicy inside.
Then I assembled the taco with:
warm corn tortilla (this time I’ve used yellow corn Masienda masa harina),
grilled mtsvadi-style pork,
green tkemali with jalapeño and lime,
pink onions (marinated),
coriander.
Test #2: Strip Everything Back
So for the second test, I went in the opposite direction: No beetroot and no crema.
Just pork and corn tortilla with tkemali-jalapeno salsa and a gentle sprinkle of chopped onion and coriander.
Basically, I wanted to see how little I could change.
And this is the version I would repeat.
It is simple, direct and full of flavour. The pork gives you smoke and richness. The tortilla gives you warmth; it holds the whole thing together, wrapping it and giving it a structure. The tkemali salsa brings acid, fruit and spice. The pink onions bring crunch and sharpness. The coriander lifts the whole thing. I think that nothing extra is needed. This is my Taco Craft.
Can You Cook It Without an Outdoor Grill?
Yes you can. Of course, an outdoor grill is best: mtsvadi belongs to fire and smoke matters here. It brings that slightly wild aroma is part of the pleasure.
But you can still make a very good version at home. Use a cast iron pan, grill pan or heavy skillet. Get it properly hot. Do not overcrowd the pan. Let the pork brown properly before moving it. You want colour, caramelisation and little crispy edges.
It will not be exactly the same as cooking over coals, but it will still give you a very satisfying pork taco.
What Tortillas Work Best?
For me, this taco needs a proper corn tortilla.
A flour tortilla would be pleasant, but corn gives the dish more character. It adds earthiness. It has that nixtamal aroma that makes tacos feel like tacos. It also creates a more interesting conversation with Georgian flavours.
The corn tortilla does not fight the mtsvadi. It carries it.
If you make your own tortillas from masa harina or fresh masa, even better. Keep them soft, warm and flexible. This is not the place for dry supermarket wraps.
I honestly believe that a taco is only as good as its tortilla.
Here is my Proper Tortillas article so you can make homemade ones as a pro very soon.
What to Serve With Mtsvadi Tacos
Keep it fresh and not too heavy.
These tacos would be lovely with:
a simple tomato and cucumber salad
grilled vegetables
extra tkemali on the side
pickled onions
refried beans if you want a more Mexican-style plate
a light cabbage slaw with lime
cold beer, amber wine or a juicy natural red
And yes, I would absolutely pair these with Georgian wine.
A fresh, slightly wild natural red could be beautiful. A qvevri amber with grip and acidity could also work, especially if the pork is fatty and the tkemali is sharp.
This is where Mexican format and Georgian table culture really begin to flirt.
And I find it very exciting indeed!
pork bbq taco
What I Learned From Testing Mtsvadi Tacos
My Taco Lab tests aren’t meant to become that strange fusion, really. I want to get a very valuable first-hand experience building great tacos.
1. The size of the pork matters
Make the pork cubes smaller: Traditional mtsvadi-sized chunks could potentially be awkward in a small taco. So cut them smaller first, or keep the size and cut them in half just before serving. I realised quite quickly that pork cooked perfectly for mtsvadi isn’t automatically pork prepared perfectly for a taco because a taco is eaten in just a few bites, and large pieces of pork would not be that suitable.
What way is better? Well, it depends on how you like your BBQ- smaller cubes will cook faster and will have more crispy ends. Larger chunks will be juicier inside, and after cutting, you’d end up with flavourful tacos too.
2. Fat level matters even more inside a tortilla
My readers asked me when I published this in the first instance – which cut of pork? I have used pork neck – it’s fattier and thus makes really flavourful BBQ. Your tkemali-jalapeno salsa will successfully cut throygh that fatty bits and you will enjoy immensely.
My formula here is simple: fatty pork + acidic salsa + corn tortilla = balance.
3. Charcoal versus pan
I wouldn’t pretend the pan version is exactly the same. For me, the slightly smoky, charred edges are actually one of the things that make this combination work. But let’s keep the outdoorsy BBQ for your picnics and such. In home kitchens or even commercials, we do not usually have access to charcoal grills, so a good pan or a griddle in this case will work just fine.
My Verdict on Pork BBQ Tacos
Mtsvadi tacos work very, very well. But the key is not to overcomplicate them.
Let the ingredients shine. Let the tortilla taste like corn. Let the tkemali do what tkemali does best: cut through richness and make you want the next bite. Tkemali-jalapeno salsa doesn’t need to imitate salsa verde. It already performs much of the same job.
For me, the best version was the most minimal one: grilled pork, warm tortilla, tkemali-jalapeño salsa, pink onions and coriander.
That is all, really.
And when a delicious tortilla carries smoky Georgian pork BBQ, topped with zesty tkemali-jalapeño salsa, it feels like two cultures met at the table and became good friends.
Having eaten traditional mtsvadi with shoti (plain Georgian bread), I can also entend this Taco Lab test into a conclusion for:
A. mtsvadi + Georgian bread + tkemali B. mtsvadi + corn tortilla + tkemali salsa
Which one would I prefer, A or B?
I found that large pieces of bread are completely unnecessary here, and mtsvadi tastes cleaner in a taco. And I am not saying that the tortilla makes mtsvadi better. I think it changes the way you eat this dish. Instead of meat, bread and sauce being separate things on the table, every bite suddenly contains all three. And it is beautiful.
Taco Lab #07 Results on Mtsvadi Tacos
Test 1: Gaonera-style pork taco Delicious: yes. Interesting: definitely. Pork BBQ: not really.
Test 2: Proper mtsvadi taco Smoke: ✓ Richness: ✓ Acidity: ✓ Crunch: ✓ Corn flavour: ✓ Would I make it again? Absolutely.
Tacos and Wines: This Mtsvadi taco is also perfect with a glass of wine. And I’m not saying this just because of rich Georgian winemaking traditions. It has a good balance and is very versatile in its perfect wine pairings. I’ve tried it with light reds like Aladasturi and Tavkveri, but also with a light amber Rkatsiteli, and even with the Imeretian classic blend of Tsitska Tsolikouri Krakhuna – both worked like a charm.
I'm a Mexican restaurant owner, entrepreneur, marketer, flexitarian cook and WSET Diploma-qualified wine professional. Here, I develop and test tacos, tortillas and salsas both at home and in a working restaurant kitchen for passionate cooks far from Mexico. Follow my Taco Lab to build better tacos.
