The FINANCIAL -- The Marriott, the prestigious five star hotel in Tbilisi , has started offering a new summer menu to hotel guests.
According to Maka Shamugia, Head of the Food and Beverage Department at Marriott hotels, different sorts of ice cream, new cocktails and milkshakes will be available at the hotel.
Food and Beverage is one of the biggest departments here at the Marriott in which about 95 people are employed. This department doesn’t just consist of bars and restaurants, but also the kitchen.
“One of the most important things at our hotel is its standards, created by the professionals and the experience of the guests,” Shamugia told The FINANCIAL. “We have different standards such as service quality, food safety, cleanliness, hygiene and many more. Every little detail is controlled at our department. These standards support the loyalty guests have toward the hotel. The standards for the staff as well as for our guests are one of its protective mechanisms.”
“We have a new offer available at the moment; ice cream for our clients. There are many places in Tbilisi where you can get ice cream, but the taste differs everywhere. We import the main powder for ice cream from Germany, but all of the other products which are necessary for creating it are bought on the local market. We provide ice creams locally. The hotel’s pastry chef Temo Gigauri works hard on creating the ice creams. 11 flavours of ice cream are available at the moment which are very tasty and have quite an affordable price taking into account their quality,” Shamugia said.
“We offer people pineapple flavoured ice cream, tangerine and green apple flavours too. These are new tastes that haven’t yet been produced elsewhere in Tbilisi . Tangerine ice cream is quite new for the Tbilisi market. We have Pistachio ice cream which is much in demand and also a combined caramel and nut ice cream flavour,” Shamugia said.
The Marriott has a new, Mexican chef who has been working in Tbilisi for 2 years. He is well acquainted with the Georgian market and its consumers. According to Shamugia, being acquainted with Georgian people and their nature is one of the main advantages for a foreign chef.
“Our chef is working on a new menu that will be offered to our guests in 2 weeks with many novelties. We also plan to offer our guests cheese from Poka Monastery. The cheese from Poka monastery is very tasty and recently a degustation of it was held. It has a really gorgeous taste and the main point is that we are promoting locally produced food. Foreigners have also tasted cheese from the monastery and agree that it is very tasty. This cheese goes well with different sorts of wine. This cheese will be available at our restaurant soon,” Shamugia said.
The Marriott hotel offered a wedding arrangement service last year. This service became very successful as many couples used it. Tbilisi Marriott Hotel organized a grand Wedding Fair in the ballroom of the hotel recently where wedding gowns, groom’s suits, jewellery and wedding decorations were all presented.Recently the Marriott baked a wedding cake similar to that of Prince William’s royal wedding cake which was composed of 8 tiers and consisted of 17 different elements.
“One of the couples who attended the fair made an order with us to bake an unprecedented cake, similar to the royal wedding cake from the marriage of Prince William in Britain. No one had baked such a grand cake in Tbilisi before and we are really proud of it. I do my best to promote our pastry department. There are many pastries in Georgia but I always say that a pastry cook shouldn’t only bake a yummy cake, the design is as important. One of the main components while baking a cake is the decoration. If you don’t have a good, refined taste the cake doesn’t look very attractive,” Shamugia said.
“Our cake was exceptional because of its size and shape and beautiful decorations. It was a bit taller than the cake of the recent royal wedding. The cake parameters were: length - 1.70 meter and width - 1.20 diameters. It was really beautiful and all the guests attending this wedding were excited by its beauty and taste. No one wanted to cut the cake; they just wanted to admire it. Baking this cake was a great responsibility, it was really hard to bake it and I was a bit nervous, but at the same time I was sure that everything would be ok.”
“5 people worked on decorating this cake and it was created within 3 weeks. The cake consisted of 17 elements and about 1,000 eggs were used on it together with 28-30 kilos of sugar and flour. The cake’s fruit content consisted of 70% strawberries and 30% raspberries. It was a great success for us. We had created a couple of big cakes before, but this case was exceptional. The cake was not only grand but also delicious.”
According to Shamugia, before baking the cake they held a tasting and had some meetings with the couple for whom they were going to bake it. They went through every small detail connected to the cake’s baking as it had to be exceptional and grand.
“Tall cakes have been baked in Tbilisi before but out of 8 tiers 5 used to be just artificial models. Whereas our cake had 8 tiers and each of them was natural. People were able to eat all of the parts of the cake. We started constructing the cake at 12 o’clock noon and ended at 6 o’clock in the evening of the wedding day. The whole team was involved in decorating the cake. We were proud of our beautiful cake which was placed in front of the ballroom,” Shamugia said.
“At the moment, we are working on baking a princess shaped cake for a children’s birthday party. The parents of the child asked us to work on baking a princess cake. We are always implementing seasonal changes in the Marriott’s menus; in our restaurants and in our cafes. At the moment we are offering new cocktails, ice creams and shakes to our clients in the frames of a seasonal menu.”
“Georgia is wealthy in terms of its berries and we have the great opportunity to create cocktails and ice cream from these natural, locally sourced foodstuffs. We also have a wide variety of salads. Most of all Georgian guests like intense tastes. So we take into account their demands and offer them a variety of dishes. We always try to offer our guests novelties in the Marriott and in the Courtyard at the same time. We try to have a similar promotion going on in both hotels at the same time. We have loyal clients here at the Marriott as well as at the Courtyard.”
“The patio, the open restaurant at the Marriott, is very popular, particularly in summer. People can visit it in the summer, have a nice time and eat delicious dishes in the open air. It’s a really cosy place where people come to unwind after a hard working day and relax. Our café and restaurant Parnas is very popular and everyone knows it. Our lobby is also visited a lot for its tea and coffee. The Courtyard’s bar and restaurant Bresserie Freedom is also a nice place to visit,” Shamugia said.
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