About

It all started when…

the realization of a lifelong dream for Ella Bakh, who grew up in Georgia and moved to the United States in 1996. She loved cooking from a very young age, she said, but ended up working as a florist.

She stayed in that field for more than 20 years, she said, but the floral industry began to feel the impact from grocery store competition. One of the side effects, she said, was that more and more of the florist businesses ended up focusing on funerals, and it began to weigh on her.

She wanted to pursue her passion for cooking, and began exploring culinary school options. She said she was initially concerned that she was too old to embark on a restaurant career, but decided to go forward after receiving encouragement from both school representatives and her own mother.

She completed courses at the Northwest Culinary Institute in Vancouver, which included an internship in her hometown, Georgia’s capital city of Tbilisi. After getting back, she began looking for a restaurant space. Nico Bakh put his college studies on hold to help out, using his artistic skills to design the interior.

Ella Bakh said Georgian meals tend to be enormous family affairs, so she initially envisioned a very large restaurant — but the Vancouver Marketplace location ended up being plenty to manage.

Nico Bakh said they wanted the restaurant to have a Georgian look and feel while still fitting comfortably into the modern American food landscape.

By Anthony Macuk, Columbian business reporter “New downtown Vancouver restaurants have appetite for authenticity”