There are thousands of restaurants in the Bay Area, but as far as I know, only one has the famous Georgian khachapuri. Bevri cranks them out alongside other Georgian specialties and an extensive list of clay pot-fermented wines to pair them with.

A cheese- and butter-filled Eye of Ra glazed to a sheen with egg wash, the crusts of the adjaruli khachapuri are meant to be used to consume the molten, cheesy insides until nothing is left. Khachapuri, of which there are many delicious regional variations, is an ancient dish for an ancient culinary and vinocultural center, so tied to the Georgian national consciousness that publications measure inflation by the “Khachapuri Index” — tracking the costs of making a single piece during a given month. Khachapuri is, and I don’t use this word lightly, an icon.

Look up from your cheese bread ($18) and you’ll see a giant chalkboard on the wall full of Georgian script. “Chven gviq’vars chveni st’umrebi!” (“We love our guests!”) is inscribed on the bottom. In the middle of the board is a breakdown of nine common Georgian wines, with an illustrated chart of glasses showing the color of each. A pair of enormous flags, one Georgian and one of the United States of America, hang from the tall ceiling in the middle of the room. On one of my visits, I saw someone walking around in a Georgian chokha outfit and big fluffy hat holding a ram’s horn made for drinking. I wondered if he was the restaurant’s owner playacting like a mascot, but as it turns out, he was a customer who was encouraged by the staff to try on the traditional outfits that they have casually hanging on the back wall.

(The only thing about the restaurant that didn’t lean into Georgian culture was the dining room’s playlist of American pop music: I heard a lot of Rihanna. If you’re curious about what Georgian music sounds like, I whipped up a playlist on Spotify.)

You can try to eat at Bevri without soaking in any of that ambient cultural celebration, but you’d have to try pretty hard. This is a restaurant that is also a classroom, a cultural ambassador in itself, with a staff that takes up the task enthusiastically.

Bevri, opened in Palo Alto last year by Russia-born tech entrepreneur Pavel Sirotin and his relatives to address what they saw as a significant void in the local food scene, is all about putting Georgia on the Bay Area map. Here, I overheard not just typical Palo Alto lunchtime conversations about go-lives and user interfaces but earnest back-and-forths between guests and servers about the virtues of fermenting wine in a traditional clay qvevri instead of a European-style oak barrel. (Do check out wine critic Esther Mobley’s piece on Georgia wine for more on this!)

It helps that during weekday happy hours, all wines are half-priced so you can feel free to sample from the restaurant’s wide selection. As someone who previously possessed only a basic familiarity with Georgian wine varieties, I found this very helpful. There are also some domestic wines, though they nevertheless fit the theme: Those bottles are from Eristavi Winery, a San Francisco urban winery run by a Georgian American family. My favorite of the wines I tried here was the 2016 Artevani Saperavi ($80 per bottle), which was fermented in a qvevri; its leathery flavor decisively pushes through the richness of khachapuri like Moses parted the Red Sea.

Even the chalkboards have something to teach you, with one listing all the steps required to eat khachapuri and the xiaolongbao-like khinkali. If you’re a newbie, you’ll need that guidance to avoid making a mess, especially since khinkali are much larger and unwieldy than the cute, spoonable XLBs at Koi Palace.

My pro tip for the khinkali: Stab the nipple with your fork and slurp the soup inside of the dumpling upside-down. You get to choose among fillings of pork and beef; lamb and beef; and mushroom. I preferred the lamb and beef, which was surprisingly more tender.

But while eating here, I realized that though Bevri’s renditions of the superstars are capable and delicious, the vegetable-centered supporting characters were even stronger. You’re probably going to get one of the two khachapuri, but be sure to grab a side of red pepper adjika sauce ($3) for a welcome hit of acidity to slice through the fatty dairy.

To start your meal, get the spinach and beet pkhali spreads ($15) served as gorgeous green and magenta scoops that look like a Mardi Gras sundae on a plate. Rendered creamy by walnut puree, the spreads’ earthy flavors and innate tannic properties pair well with a bottle of qvevri-fermented red wine. Walnuts also feature as a filling of another appetizer worth ordering: the meaty, yet vegan, eggplant rolls ($14), which squeak between your teeth like fresh cheese curds, but feel much healthier going down the gullet. Eggplant is sliced lengthwise into thin strips and cooked until soft, then wrapped around the chopped walnuts and herbs into a cold, vegetal take on the Fruit Roll-Up. The lamb and chicken stews ($22, $14) are also chock-full of fresh herbs and hefty vegetables like eggplant, tomato and onions.

No wonder Russians adore Georgian food so much. As evidenced by the food at San Francisco’s Slavic restaurants like Red Tavern and Cinderella Bakery, Georgian cuisine is an orgy of color and texture by comparison. (Which is not to say pelmeni, piroshki and beef stroganoff aren’t as delicious — they’re just very beige and soft.)

Most entrees are straightforward: You can choose from a list of proteins to go with potatoes or salad, though if you just stick with those when you visit and forgo any smaller dishes you’re surely doing this wrong. I enjoyed the herbal lamb mtsvadi ($26), a pile of tender grilled meat cubes flavored with a grassy and nutty spice mix and garnished with thin, raw onion slices. You could go full-on meat-and-potatoes here with the roasted potato side, but I’d skip that in favor of the salad of green lettuce, radish chunks and thick slices of cucumber. The cubed potatoes are much like the kind you’d whip together for a brunch hash while hungover: undersalted and seared in the oven on just one side, rather than rotated to be crisp all over. The press-roasted chicken tapaka ($20 for half, $36 for whole) is a great option when it’s not dried out — your mileage may vary.

Unfortunately, desserts are skippable at Bevri, which is not what I’d ever say about Cinderella Bakery. The honey cake ($10) is dry; a pastry-layered Napoleon ($8) is, by contrast, soggy; and the eclair ($7) is unremarkable. Still, there are lots of places that you can hit up in downtown Palo Alto if you’re hoping for a sweet little something after your meal.

If San Franciscans want to try the legendary “cheese boats,” Bevri is a great place to start. For now, it remains the Bay Area’s only sit-down place with a dedicated Georgian menu; its sole companion so far has been Kolkhida, a food truck that patrols Mountain View.

It feels natural that we in America, the land of stuffed-crust pizza and cheese-pull Boomerangs, would love the khachapuri, as much a breakout star of Georgian cuisine as Bjork is to the Icelandic music scene. Bevri’s megruli khachapuri ($17), another horseman of the Georgian quesopocalypse, is stuffed with cheese and then baked with even more scattered on top. Zoom in with your camera and it could just be another anonymous mesh of cheese goo. But Bevri doesn’t let you forget where this thing came from.

Soleil Ho is The San Francisco Chronicle’s restaurant critic. Email: soleil.ho@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @hooleil

Bevri 530 Bryant St., Palo Alto. 650-384-6500 or www.bevri.com Hours: 11:30 a.m.-2 p.m. and 5-10 p.m. Mondays through Fridays; 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Saturdays; 11 a.m.- 9 p.m. Sundays. Accessibility: No steps. Two gender-neutral restrooms; one of them (the closer one) has a cabinet that may be an obstacle to getting in. Good access to tables. Noise level: Moderate. Meal for two, sans drinks: $56-$78 What to order: Pkhali with bread, adjaruli khachapuri, lamb and beef khinkali (above), lamb mtsvadi Plant-based options: A few delicious vegan starters and one entree option. The highlight of the menu is cheese bread, so vegetarians should be fine. Drinks: Wine, one type of beer and an assortment of Georgian soft drinks and berry juice. Transportation: A brisk walk from Palo Alto Caltrain Station. Plenty of free public lot s , garage and street parking nearby. Best practices: During happy hour (5-6 p.m on weekdays) all wine, including the pricey bottles, is 50% off. Skip the dessert menu and grab fancy ice cream, macarons or cookies from the options nearby.