Press & Media - Oda House

Oda House's Maia Acquaviva Traded in a Scalpel for a Chef’s Knife - MICHELIN Guide

The chef and owner explores the cuisine of her native Republic of Georgia at her East Village restaurant. Acquaviva was born and raised in Georgia, where spending time in her grandmother’s kitchen nurtured a lifelong passion for cooking. Nevertheless, she opted for a career providing healthcare rather than hospitality, becoming a successful plastic surgeon with her own practice. But even after operating for eight hours, she recalls, “I was coming home and cooking—it was relaxing, a great feeling.”

29 May 2018

Hungry City: Oda House in the East Village - The New York Times

For khachapuri, the legendary Georgian flatbread with guts of melted cheese, Ms. Acquaviva juxtaposes mozzarella and feta to approximate the taste of sulguni, a pliant, brined Georgian cheese. In a version called adjaruli, cheese bubbles in a crater at the bread’s center, into which, at the last minute, raw egg is dropped.

08 June 2013

Lunchbox: Georgia Food on My Mind, at Oda House - The Wall Street Journal

Georgians love to feast, according to Oda House staff, and the menu reflects that. Especially if eating with a big group, one could do very well ordering a bunch of hot and cold appetizers to share. The pkhali trio is a collection of vegetable pates (leek, eggplant and spinach) mixed with ground nuts and garlic and garnished with glistening pomegranate seeds. Khinkali are the Georgian version of soup dumplings, velvety steamed dough encasing a fragrant beef-and-pork meatball and broth.

14 July 2013

An East Village restaurant featuring the cuisine of the Republic of Georgia.

Chef Maia Acquaviva is the chef and owner of Oda House, an East Village restaurant featuring the cuisine of the Republic of Georgia. Chef Acquavina was born and raised in Georgia, where spending time in her grandmother’s kitchen nurtured a passion for cooking. Years later, after becoming a successful plastic surgeon, she recalls that she would come home after performing eight hours of surgery and cook. “It was relaxing – a great feeling.”

07 March 2019

First Look at Oda House, Bringing Georgian Cuisine to the East Village

Oda House brings the rare-for-Manhattan cuisine of Georgia to the East Village, and if you’ve ever had the pleasure of tucking into that country’s gut-busting fare, you know that it’s something worth getting excited about. Chef-partner Maia Acquaviva’s menu doesn’t stint on the classics. There’s Georgian shish kebab, the slow-cooked lamb dish called chakapuli, the titanic soup dumplings known as khinkali, and a section devoted to khachapuri, the excellent Georgian cheese breads, variously stuffed and topped.