Food & Cuisine in Central Asia

Central Asian cuisine is the food of the Silk Road: hearty, meat-rich, and shaped by both nomadic herders and settled oasis cooks. Its undisputed king is plov (osh), a fragrant one-pot rice pilaf of lamb, carrots, and cumin that varies from city to city and is prepared in enormous cauldrons for weddings and feasts. Uzbeks will argue endlessly over whose regional version is best.

Alongside plov come the region’s other staples: hand-pulled laghman noodles brought from China, plump samsa baked in tandoor ovens, skewers of charcoal-grilled shashlik, and rounds of golden non bread that are treated almost as sacred. The bazaars of Samarkand and Bukhara overflow with dried fruit, nuts, spices, and mountains of melons that Central Asians consider the sweetest on earth.

Every city has its own specialities and its own great teahouses (chaikhanas), where meals stretch across an afternoon over endless pots of green tea. Eating your way through the region’s markets and family-run restaurants is one of the great pleasures of Silk Road travel.

Best Cities for Food#

Tashkent

Uzbekistan’s capital and its greatest food city, from the plov centre where cooks battle over the perfect pilaf to the sprawling Chorsu Bazaar under its blue dome.

Samarkand

Home to a proud, distinct style of plov and to famous Samarkand non, a dense decorated flatbread that travellers say never goes stale.

Bukhara

An oasis of teahouses around Lyabi-Hauz pool, where shashlik and rich Bukharan plov are eaten in the shade of ancient mulberry trees.

Almaty

Kazakhstan’s culinary capital, where nomadic dishes like beshbarmak and horse-meat kazy meet cosmopolitan cafes and the vast Green Bazaar.

Bishkek

The best place to try Kyrgyz mountain food: beshbarmak, hearty laghman, and the fermented mare’s milk kumis, all cheaply at the Osh Bazaar.

Dushanbe

Tajikistan’s capital, where qurutob (a bread, yoghurt, and onion dish) is the beloved national plate, served in leisurely open-air teahouses.

Chorsu Bazaar

Tashkent’s iconic domed market, a sensory overload of spice mountains, dried apricots, fresh non, and sizzling street samsa.

Fergana

The heart of the fertile Fergana Valley, famous for its own style of plov and for the silk-and-fruit abundance of Uzbekistan’s most productive farmland.