There’s more to Uzbekistan than sublime architecture with its intricate tilework, world-renowned craftsmanship and echoes of the Silk Road. Millennia of trade with its neighbors and the influences of various cultures have left an enviable culinary legacy, and hospitality towards visitors reigns supreme.
If you’re lucky enough to be invited into an Uzbek home, you may find yourself sitting down to a full spread of dishes, placed on a dastarkhan (low dining table). Kazans full of plov (Central Asian pilaf) and shurpa (meat and vegetable soup) are perpetually simmering in Uzbek kitchens, while spice-heavy shashlik (meat skewers) sizzle on grills before being presented with aplomb alongside fresh vegetable salads.
Elsewhere, you can inhale bowlfuls of hand-pulled noodles in vegetable broth, wolf down superlative street food, shaped by centuries of invasions and counter-invasions, feed your gut microbiome with katyk (yoghurt), sip bowlfuls of tea with locals, and sate your sweet tooth with superb fruit, their dried counterparts and a cornucopia of other sweets, as well as tasting the best wines in Central Asia.
Celebrate Uzbekistan’s culinary heritage with plov
Traditionally cooked by men, plov is so central to the Uzbek identity that every town and every family has its own special recipe, and it’s been recognized as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO. Trying this dish is an important experience in Uzbekistan. A slow-cooked rice dish prepared in a large kazan (cauldron), plov typically contains mutton, lamb or beef, as well as spices, onions and carrots; the Tashkent version sees most of the ingredients roasted before plov is cooked, while plov from Samarkand tends to be layered and steamed.
Where to try it: Head to the Plov Centre in Tashkent, Osh Markazi in Samarkand, or The Plov in Bukhara.
Munch on meaty goodies
Almost as synonymous with Uzbek cuisine as plov, shashlik come in many varieties, including mutton, lamb, beef, chicken, liver and lyulya (ground beef), all of them well-spiced, juicy, fatty and prepared over hot coals, the recipes of their marinades jealously guarded. Kebabs aside, delights for the carnivorously inclined include hacip (boiled sausages made from minced meat and rice), kazy (horse meat sausages) and dolma (grape or cabbage leaves stuffed with meat and rice).
Where to try it: Sample the best at Mansur Shashlik in Samarkand, Terassa Restaurant in Khiva, or Caravan in Tashkent.
Slurp on oodles of noodles
According to legend, laghman came about as a result of three hungry travelers meeting and deciding to pool their resources (flour, dried meat, radish, fragrant herbs). The result, found all over the country, consists of steaming bowls of long, flat noodles in broth, with separately cooked mutton (or beef) and finely chopped vegetables (onions, bell peppers, aubergine, carrot, potato) mixed in, and everything topped with a riot of fresh herbs.
In Tashkent, Uyghur-style, hand-pulled chuzma-laghman hint at the ancient Chinese roots of the dish, while elsewhere you’ll find noodles cut into long strips, Uzbek-style. Another variation on laghman is qavurma laghman (noodles without broth). In Khiva, look out for shivit-oshi (green noodles made of dough with added fresh dill), topped with fried meat and vegetables; elsewhere, you may encounter beshbarmak (noodles with horse meat and broth) and naryn (horse meat sausage with cold noodles).
Where to try it: Try Khorezm Art Restaurant in Khiva, Anor in Tashkent, or Besh Chinor in Samarkand.
Stop for tea
Step into one of the ubiquitous chaikhanas (tea houses) – the Uzbekistan equivalent of a pub – and you’ll find yourself amongst local men enjoying partaking in leisurely conversations, playing backgammon, clinching business deals and putting the world to rights while drinking tea from traditional cups akin to small bowls. All over Uzbekistan, green tea tends to be more common, while in Tashkent, you’re more likely to encounter a mixture of black and green tea with lemon and honey. The brewing ritual, called kaytar (“to return”) is fairly elaborate: first, tea leaves are steeped in boiling water until they brew a little bit; the tea is then poured from the teapot into the bowl-like cup and back again three times. While chaikhanas are traditionally the domain of men, some allow foreign women to enter; even if you may not visit a chaikhana, you will be served tea before and after any meal.
Where to try it: Any chaikhana.
Break bread with strangers
One of the pillars of Uzbek cuisine, naan (bread) is cooked in tandoor-style ovens and is central to cultural customs and celebrations. Regional variations abound: in Tashkent, chow down on patir naan (made with milk), while Samarkand naan contains onions and meat. In the Fergana Valley, katlama (flatbread greased with butter or brushed with katyk) is present at every meal. To show due respect to bread, break it by hand and never place it with the decoration facing down.
Where to try it: Any Uzbek home.
Warm up with a bowl of soup
Uzbekistan’s thick, moreish soups are fantastic winter warmers that you’ll find bubbling away in kazans (cauldrons). The most popular is shurpa, meat broth soup with chunks of mutton, cooked on the bone and separated before serving, plus vegetables. The regional variation of kovurma shurpa, where the meat is first fried, is found in the south of the country. Other liquid nourishment includes mastava – a rice soup with beef and vegetables, often topped with sour cream; mashhurda – a thick soup made from boiled beef or lamb bones with rice and mung beans; plus nohat shurak, made from chickpeas and beef, and usually accompanied by a piece of kazy (horse sausage).
Where to try it: Stop by National Food in Tashkent, or Osh Markazi in Samarkand.
Start your day with dairy
Make your way to a clamorous bazaar in Tashkent or Samarkand early in the day, and head for the dairy section, where you’ll find trays of kurt (sun-dried, salty, fermented milk cheese, either cubed or in spherical form) – a popular protein-packed snack at any time of day that can survive for weeks without refrigeration, since is contains its own natural preservative. Dairy sellers will also flog you bottles of ayran – a drink made from katyk (fermented cow’s or sheep’s milk) mixed with either sparkling or still water, herbs, and a dash of salt (you’re also likely to encounter it at breakfast time in traditional guesthouses), and pots of suzma (yogurt made from katyk, minus the excess liquid).
Katyk makes appearances elsewhere: it’s a typical ingredient in shurpa and plov, as well as a base for katykli (katyk-based soup with meat, vegetables and rice) and chalop (another cold soup incorporating finely chopped vegetables).
Where to try it: The dairy counters at Uzbekistan’s markets. You can also buy ayran and katyk at supermarkets.
Chow down on street food
Uzbek street food is great for budget travelers. It’s inexpensive, flavourful, and sufficiently filling to get you through a siege. Pride of place goes to manty, large steamed dumplings with a filling of finely chopped meat. It’s the quintessential food of nomads, a soup and main in one: bite a hole in the dough, drink the meaty juices, then gobble the rest.
Other doughy delights include smaller, boiled chuchvara dumplings, served in a vegetable broth; crispy fried chuchvara; hanum (steamed, log-shaped dumplings stuffed with potatoes and onions) and tukhum-barak (square dumplings with raw egg poured into the dough just before boiling) – the latter unique to Khiva.
Samsa – a crispy, flaky, triangular pastry stuffed with minced or chopped meat, baked in a clay tandoor oven – is Uzbekistan’s answer to the samosa (in fact, it was Central Asian traders who introduced the concept to India in the 13th century), while gumma samsa (stuffed with offal) is a particularly moreish, tasty variation.
Where to try it: Instead of street food stalls on street corners, in Uzbekistan, samsa and dumplings tend to be found at covered markets, such as the Choru street food market in Tashkent.
Taste Uzbekistan’s wine vintages
In Uzbekistan, grape cultivation and wine making goes back several millennia. Viticulture was further entrenched in Central Asia with the arrival of Alexander the Great’s armies in the 4th century BCE, while Marco Polo, a renowned Venetian traveler, raved about the quality of Samarkand’s and Bukhara’s wines while traveling in Central Asia in the 13th century. Conquest by Tsarist Russia in the late 19th century led to grape harvesting and wine production on an industrial scale, and today, travelers may sample excellent vintages made from both classic grape varieties (pinot noir, cabernet sauvignon, Riesling) and regional ones (rkatsiteli, soyaki, hindongna).
Where to try it: Several wineries offer tours of the premises, accompanied by wine tastings. In the Zarafshan valley, 15km from Samarkand, the Bagizagan winery produces saperavi and cabernet, plus Riesling, bayan shirey and kuldjinskiy blends, as well as vermouth infused with mountain herbs and brandy.
In Samarkand, you can delve into the history of winemaking in Uzbekistan at the museum attached to the Hovrenko Winery and sample several wines, including local port and the potent Balsam Samarkand. Near Tashkent, the family-run Uzumfermer Winery offers vineyards tours, followed by tastings of its pinot noir, saperavi and hadji murat vintages.
Finish on a sweet note
Locally-grown apricots, cherries, peaches, figs and melons add a crowning touch to meals in the summertime. The rest of the year, seek out dried melons and apricots; halva (crumbly confection made with tahini), khashtak (made from nuts and dried fruit), kozinaki (nuts brittle made with sugar syrup), pashmak (halva woven from thin, sweet threads), bugirsaki (sweet pastries prepared for the holidays), Turkish delight, holvaitar (dessert made from flour, sugar, butter and water) and sumalak (traditional dessert boiled in a huge cauldron for Navruz – Persian New Year).
Where to try it: Assorted fruit and sweets tend to be sold at Uzbekistan’s food markets, such as Samarkand’s Siad Bazaar.
Vegetarians and vegans
Uzbekistan’s abundance of superb fruit and vegetables, courtesy of its fertile soil and sunny climate, is a gift to non-meat-eating travelers. Traditionally, vegetarian dishes in Uzbekistan took the form of side dishes, since mains tend to be beef- or lamb-based by default. With the advent of increased tourism, this trend is changing in the bigger cities, where chefs have learned to replace meat with legumes or vegetables in Uzbek standards such as plov and laghman.
Vegetarians and vegans alike can look out for mashhurda (a thick soup made with rice and mung beans) though you have to ask whether it’s meat-free, and salads such as achichuk (a spicy mix of tomatoes, onions and hot peppers) and shakarob (a sweet salad of tomatoes and onions seasoned with salt) that are served alongside plov. Supermarkets and produce markets alike sell a wide variety of both seasonal and exotic fruit and vegetables, and some street food sellers make vegetarian samsa stuffed with potatoes, pumpkin, spinach and mushrooms.
Subsistence is trickier for vegans, since bread and other dough products may involve eggs or be brushed with milk or katyk before baking.
Where to try it: Visit Caravan or Afsona in Tashkent, Karimbek or Platan in Samarkand, Temir’s in Bukhara, or Khiva Moon in Khiva.
