Chveni Ezo Boutique Hotel

A Garden Address One Street Back From the Black Sea

Kobuleti runs for kilometres along a pebble beach, a ribbon of sanatoriums, new towers and magnolia trees on the Adjara coast. Chveni Ezo sits on Agmashenebeli Avenue, a hundred metres from the water, and it has done the one thing most of its neighbours could not: it kept a garden. Thirty six rooms look onto a pool and a lawn planted with trees, and the sea is a walk of two minutes rather than a view you pay for. The name means our yard in Georgian, which is the whole idea. This is a house with a courtyard, run as a four star hotel, on a coast that mostly builds upwards.

Why It Works

A summer on the Georgian coast is usually a choice between a seafront balcony and somewhere for children to run. Chveni Ezo refuses the choice. The pool has a shallow end laid out for small swimmers and the garden has a play area and a trampoline, while the beach stays close enough that nobody needs the car. The rooms are generous for the category and every one opens onto a balcony. And the kitchen is the family kitchen: the tkemali, the adjika and the jam sold at the desk are made here, which tells you what arrives at breakfast.

Why This Location

Agmashenebeli Avenue is the long spine of Kobuleti, and the hotel stands on the quiet side of it, one crossing from the boulevard and the pebble shore. Walking north or south along the promenade at dusk is the local evening. Behind the town lie the Ispani peat bogs of the Kobuleti Protected Areas, a rare raised marsh with a boardwalk through the sphagnum, and south along the coast the Byzantine fortress of Petra watches the road from its rock at Tsikhisdziri. Batumi and its airport are a short drive down the same coast, which makes this a workable base for a whole stay rather than a stop.

Fast Facts

• Price: premium for the Adjara coast

• Vibe: green, family run, unhurried

• Rooms: thirty six, doubles and triples of twenty four square metres, family rooms of twenty six, all with balconies and floor to ceiling windows

• Best For: families with young children, couples who want a garden, long seaside stays

• Our Favorite Thing About the Hotel: the jars of homemade tkemali, adjika and jam sold at the desk, from the same kitchen that cooks your dinner

• Dining: Modi restaurant, Georgian and European cooking, buffet breakfast, children menu, poolside bar, a barbecue area guests can use

• Amenities: outdoor pool with a children area, garden with play area and trampoline, secure free parking, step free access, cots in every room category

• Attractions: the beach and the boulevard a hundred metres away, the Ispani marshes behind the town, Petra fortress at Tsikhisdziri, Batumi down the coast

Rooms Measured in Light

The three categories are plain to read: doubles and triples at twenty four square metres, family rooms at twenty six, all of them with floor to ceiling panoramic windows and a balcony. The decoration is contemporary and deliberately quiet, which on this coast counts as a position. Cots are available in every category, and the family rooms take four without folding anyone into a corner. Ask for a room over the garden if you are here for a week: the trees do the air conditioning that the sea breeze does not.

Modi, the Pool Bar and the Barbecue

Modi, the hotel restaurant, cooks Georgian and European dishes to order at lunch and dinner, with a children menu that spares everyone the negotiation. Breakfast is a buffet, continental when the season is quiet. Outside, the bar serves the pool through the afternoon and there is a barbecue area guests are free to use, which is how Georgian holidays are actually spent. For the rest, the ice cream and the hot dogs from the garden stand keep the small people going between meals.

What the Season Changes

Kobuleti is a summer town: the coast fills in July and August and the garden is the reason you will be glad to be one street back from it. Come in June or September and the pebble beach empties, the marshes are at their best and the rates follow. The hotel is set up for long stays rather than one night on the road, and travellers who want the sea, a pool and a base for Adjara in one address are the ones it fits.