Tbilisi is compact, and the upscale hotels cluster in three places. Rustaveli Avenue and Freedom Square hold the big international brands in restored 19th-century buildings. Across the Mtkvari river, Avlabari has the Sheraton and a row of hotels with rooftop views back over the Old Town. Down in Kala and Abanotubani, around the sulfur baths, small four-star hotels sit on cobbled lanes where a taxi cannot always reach the door.
Below are ten hotels rated 8/10 or higher on Booking.com. Not all of them carry five stars, and that is deliberate. In Tbilisi a well-run four-star with a terrace over the Old Town often beats a tower with a ballroom. Prices are lower than in most European capitals: a five-star room in high season typically costs 150 to 300 dollars, a good four-star 80 to 150.
Sheraton Grand Tbilisi Metechi Palace
Opened in 1991 as the Metechi Palace, this was the first Western-run hotel in independent Georgia, and it still dominates the Avlabari hillside on the left bank. Sheraton Grand Tbilisi Metechi Palace has 220 renovated rooms and suites, many with private balconies facing the Old Town and Narikala across the river. Rooms are soundproofed and come with coffee machines and separate sitting areas. The design borrows from Georgian ornament without turning into a souvenir shop.
Five restaurants and bars operate on site. ATI, the rooftop lounge, serves modern Georgian dishes and has the best sunset view of any hotel bar in the city. P’auza spa and a large outdoor pool make it one of the few Tbilisi hotels where a summer afternoon can be spent without leaving. The ballroom is the largest in the city, so conferences fill the lobby on weekdays. Rating 8/10 from 941 reviews. Avlabari metro station is a 10-minute walk downhill; a guided walk through the Old Town can be joined at Metekhi bridge a few minutes further.
Tbilisi Marriott Hotel
Rustaveli Avenue is the city’s main boulevard, and the Marriott occupies one of its oldest hotel buildings. Behind a facade from the early 1900s the restored ceiling of the Great Room and the marble floors of the Parnas cafe survive from the original Hotel Majestic. Of all the brands on Rustaveli, this one keeps the most of the old building.
Its 127 rooms and suites mix current Marriott standards with Georgian details in fabrics and artwork. Guests get a fitness center, an executive lounge and a quiet inner courtyard that blocks the avenue noise completely. Freedom Square and the Rustaveli metro station are each a few minutes on foot, the Old Town about fifteen. Rating 8/10 from 568 reviews. Rooms facing the courtyard sleep better than those on the avenue.
Radisson Blu Iveria Hotel
The Iveria tower has its own history. Built in 1967 as the Soviet Intourist hotel, it housed refugees from Abkhazia through the 1990s before Radisson gutted and reopened it in 2009. Today Radisson Blu Iveria Hotel stands on Rose Revolution Square at the top of Rustaveli, a 10-minute walk from the Old Town through the busiest part of the center.
Interiors are minimalist, and the floor-to-ceiling windows are the point: from the upper floors the whole valley opens up, from Mtatsminda to the Narikala ridge. The Anne Semonin spa covers 1,600 square meters with indoor and outdoor pools, the largest hotel spa in Georgia. Umami serves Asian food, Filini Italian, and the Sky Bar on the 19th floor draws non-guests for evening drinks. Rating 8/10 from 2,342 reviews, the largest sample on this list.
River Side Hotel Tbilisi
River Side Hotel stands on the bank of the Mtkvari at the edge of the historic core, in a building that follows the traditional Tbilisi pattern of carved wooden balconies over a brick base. Rooms are spacious, with wooden furniture, HD televisions and marble bathrooms. Many have a terrace or a French balcony over the river.
Its Tiffany rooftop terrace is the main reason to book. Cocktails and food are served with an open view over Old Tbilisi, the Peace Bridge and the Presidential Palace. Downstairs the Tiffany bar-restaurant does Georgian and European dishes, with live jazz on some evenings. Rating 8/10 from 896 reviews. Rooms on the river side get traffic noise from the embankment road, so ask for an upper floor.
The Gate Hotel City Centre
For stays of a week or longer, The Gate Hotel City Centre is the apartment option on Freedom Square. Each unit is an air-conditioned apartment with a Smart TV and a full kitchen, including a microwave and fridge, while the building keeps hotel services: daily cleaning, a front desk and a continental breakfast every morning.
A small free fitness corner is on site and laundry costs extra. Freedom Square metro is under the building, the Old Town starts two blocks south, and the Dry Bridge flea market is a 10-minute walk. Rating 8/10 from 2,153 reviews. Groceries for the kitchen are easiest at the Carrefour in Galleria Tbilisi across the square.
Courtyard by Marriott Tbilisi
Also on Freedom Square, Courtyard by Marriott Tbilisi is formally a four-star, but in this city it competes with the five-stars on comfort and beats most of them on location. The historic part of Tbilisi begins a five-minute walk away, and Sololaki, the district of crumbling art nouveau mansions, starts right behind the hotel.
An indoor pool and a fitness center with sauna cover the rainy days. Brasserie Freedom serves international food and has a deep list of Georgian wines; for a wider tasting, a Georgian wine tasting tour can be booked for an evening. Rooms are large and soundproofed, with French windows and thick carpets. Rating 8/10 from 576 reviews.
Citadel Narikala Hotel
Citadel Narikala is a four-star with a 9/10 rating from 1,067 reviews, the highest score among the larger hotels here. It sits on the slope below Narikala Fortress, a five-minute climb from the walls and a few minutes down to the sulfur baths of Abanotubani. Rooms are modern in grey and white, with minibar, bathrobes and slippers.
Its Citadel restaurant has a terrace over the Old Town roofs and serves Georgian classics with a lighter touch: khinkali, pkhali, chakapuli in spring. The lanes around the hotel are steep and partly stepped, so luggage on wheels is a chore and taxis stop at the bottom. In return, the evening view from the terrace costs nothing extra. Rustaveli Avenue is about 20 minutes on foot.
Tiflis Palace
Tiflis Palace stands in Old Tbilisi next to Metekhi Church, on the short stretch between the baths and the river. Rooms are bright and modern, with air conditioning, flat-screen TV, safe and minibar. Nothing here is historic except the address, and the building is a recent construction dressed in period style.
What sells the hotel is Tiflis Veranda, the rooftop restaurant. From its tables the view takes in the Kura, the Peace Bridge and the fortress lit at night. Sulfur baths, Narikala and Shardeni Street with its bars are all under five minutes on foot. Rating 8/10 from 359 reviews. Shardeni gets loud until two in the morning on weekends, so the river side of the building is the quieter choice.
Hotel Kopala
Four-star Hotel Kopala scores 9/10 from 511 reviews. It stands on the Avlabari cliff above the river, near Avlabari metro station and Metekhi Church. Rooms have free Wi-Fi, air conditioning and balconies that look either over the water to the Old Town or back toward the Sameba cathedral.
Its restaurant has a rooftop terrace with Georgian and European food, and the view over the Old Town roofs is the one printed on postcards. The sulfur baths are five minutes across the Metekhi bridge. Avlabari is also where the airport bus 337 stops, which makes Kopala the most practical of the Old Town hotels for an early flight.
Hotel British House
Hotel British House occupies a classic Tbilisi townhouse 250 meters from Rustaveli Avenue, with the original entrance hall and an inner courtyard of the kind that most buildings in the district have lost to renovation. Rooms are furnished in natural wood in a traditional style, each with air conditioning, a desk and tea and coffee facilities.
Breakfast and Georgian dinners are served in the dining hall. Shops, restaurants and the Opera House are within a few minutes’ walk, and the metro at Rustaveli is under ten. Rating 9/10 from 544 reviews, with most of the praise going to the staff. For a stay with the feel of a private house rather than a chain, this is the pick on Rustaveli.
Getting in, getting around, when to come
Tbilisi airport is 17 km east of the center. Bus 337 runs around the clock to Avlabari, Freedom Square and Rustaveli for about 1 lari, under half a dollar, with a Metromoney card or bank card tapped on board. A taxi through Bolt or Yandex Go costs 30 to 40 lari, around 12 to 15 dollars; drivers waiting at arrivals ask double. Compare flights to Tbilisi with Kutaisi as an alternative, since low-cost carriers from Europe often land there and a bus to Tbilisi takes about four hours.
Inside the city the metro has two lines and costs 1 lari per ride. Most of the hotels above are within ten minutes of Rustaveli, Freedom Square or Avlabari stations. The sulfur baths in Abanotubani rent private rooms by the hour, from about 50 lari for a basic room to 200 and more for the historic domed ones at Chreli Abano.
May to June and September to October are the comfortable months, with daytime temperatures around 22 to 28 degrees Celsius and long evenings on the terraces. July and August regularly pass 35 degrees, and only the hotels with pools, Sheraton, Radisson and Courtyard, stay pleasant in the afternoon. Winter is mild but grey, and room rates drop by a third from November to March.
