Where to Eat in Tashkent
Plov centres, bazaar stalls, Korean salads and proper restaurants: how to eat well in Tashkent at every budget, with the timing that matters.
Tashkent is the only city in Uzbekistan where you can eat something different every night for a week. It has the country's best Uzbek restaurants, the only serious international choice, and the bazaars that feed both.
It is also the city where visitors most often eat badly, because they stay near a hotel, order from a laminated menu and leave thinking Uzbek food is one thing served three ways.
A note before the names: restaurants open, close and move. Everything below has been around for years, but check on a map app before crossing the city, and treat prices as ranges rather than promises (last checked: July 2026).
Plov, properly
Plov is a lunch dish. It is cooked in the morning in enormous cauldrons, served from about eleven, and finished when it is finished, usually by early afternoon. Turning up at eight in the evening asking for plov marks you as a tourist and gets you a reheated plate.
The institution everyone visits is the Central Asian Plov Centre, also known by its Besh Qozon name, on Milliy Bog street near the TV tower. Rows of cauldrons under an awning, a queue that moves fast, communal tables, and a plate of Tashkent-style osh for a few dollars. Go before one o'clock.
Every district also has its own osh markazi, a plov centre serving its neighbourhood, and several are as good as the famous one with a tenth of the visitors. Ask where the nearest is; the answer is usually within a kilometre.
Our plov guide explains the regional versions and what to order with it, which is chopped tomato and onion salad, not chips.
The bazaars
Chorsu is the one to plan a meal around. Under and around the blue dome you will find samsa pulled hot from tandoors, lagman, shashlik, soups, and the Korean salad row, which is the best vegetarian resource in the country and where locals buy their marinated carrot, aubergine and cabbage.
Alay bazaar, closer to the centre on Amir Temur, is smaller, cleaner and easier for a quick stop, with good dried fruit and a cheap food court.
At either, buy bread from the baker's row first and eat the rest around it. Our street food guide covers what to order and what things should cost.
Uzbek restaurants worth booking
For a sit-down Uzbek meal rather than a canteen lunch, a handful of long-standing places do the job.
- Afsona: the standard recommendation for Uzbek classics served properly, in a comfortable room. Popular enough that booking is sensible in the evening.
- Caravan: a modern take on Uzbek food near Amir Temur street, with air conditioning, craft displays and higher prices. Reliable for a first night.
- Khiva: Khorezm-style cooking, including the noodle dishes and stews you would otherwise have to go to Khiva for.
- Neighbourhood chaikhanas: the best value in the city. Look for a place full of Uzbek families at lunchtime, point at what the next table has, and expect to pay a third of restaurant prices.
Expect roughly 60,000 to 120,000 som a head at the mid-range restaurants, and a fraction of that at a chaikhana or plov centre.
When you need a break from plov
After a week of lamb and rice, Tashkent's international food is a genuine relief, and it is the only city in the country where the choice is real.
| Cuisine | Why it is here | Good for |
|---|---|---|
| Korean | The Koryo-saram community deported here in 1937 | Salads, kuksi, vegetarian options |
| Uyghur and Dungan | Long-established communities from the east | Hand-pulled lagman, fried noodles |
| Georgian | Soviet-era links, now fashionable | Khachapuri, khinkali, vegetarian mezze |
| Indian | A large student population | Curries, proper vegetarian meals |
| Turkish | Business and airline links | Grills, breakfast, mezze |
| Russian and European | The Soviet century and the expat scene | Cafes, breakfast, coffee |
Coffee culture has arrived properly in the last few years: there are independent roasters and cafes across the centre and around Mustaqillik, and flat whites are no longer a surprise.
What to order, dish by dish
If the menu is long and unhelpful, these are the things worth your appetite.
Osh, or plov. Tashkent's version is comparatively light on fat and often served with a boiled egg or a slice of horse sausage on top. Ask for it with achichuk, the tomato and onion salad, which cuts through the richness.
Lagman. Hand-pulled noodles, either in broth or fried with vegetables and meat. In a Uyghur restaurant the noodles are stretched to order and the difference is obvious.
Manti. Large steamed dumplings of lamb and onion, eaten with yoghurt or vinegar. Pumpkin manti appear in autumn and are better than the meat ones.
Shashlik. Grilled skewers, ordered by type: lamb, minced lamb, liver, chicken. Evening food. A good grill is judged by whether the fat is rendered rather than raw.
Shurpa and mastava. Lamb broth with vegetables, and a rice soup. Both are winter food and both are what Uzbeks eat when they are tired of everything else.
Halim and nahor osh. Morning dishes, served early and sold out by nine. If you are up, they are worth the alarm.
Eating by budget
Under 30,000 som. Plov at an osh markazi, samsa and bread at a bazaar, a bowl of lagman at a chaikhana, a slice of melon in season. This is how most of the city eats and it is excellent.
30,000 to 80,000 som. A full lunch at a neighbourhood restaurant, Korean or Uyghur food, a cafe meal in the centre.
80,000 som and up. The named Uzbek restaurants, international dining, hotel restaurants and the newer places around the business districts.
Cards are accepted in most sit-down restaurants and useless at stalls and small chaikhanas. Carry cash for the bazaar. Tipping is not obligatory; rounding up or ten percent in a restaurant is appreciated, and some places add service, so check the bill.
Drinking: tea, coffee and the rest
Tea comes with everything and is usually the first thing on the table. Green tea, kok choy, is the default in the south and in summer; black tea, qora choy, is more common in Tashkent and in winter. It arrives in a pot with small bowls rather than cups, and there is a pouring ritual: the host fills a bowl and tips it back into the pot two or three times before serving, which mixes the brew.
A half-full bowl is not stinginess. It means your host expects to refill it and keep talking to you; a bowl filled to the brim is a polite hint that you might leave.
Alcohol is available and unremarkable in Tashkent. Uzbekistan makes wine, some of it decent and most of it sweet, along with cognac and a lot of vodka, and restaurants outside the most conservative districts serve it without fuss. Beer is widely available and cheap.
For soft drinks, look for kompot, a cold stewed-fruit drink served by the jug, and ayran, salted diluted yoghurt, which in July does more for you than anything carbonated.
Practical rules for eating well here
Eat the day's signature dish at the time it is cooked: plov at lunch, shashlik in the evening, samsa when the tandoor is hot. Uzbek food is not a menu you order from at will; it is a schedule.
Follow crowds of locals rather than English signs. A full car park of Uzbek families at 1pm is a stronger signal than any review.
And be careful with the obvious tourist traps near the main sights, where the food is ordinary and the prices are not. Two streets away is almost always better and cheaper. Our Tashkent travel guide covers the districts, and the metro guide gets you between them for pennies.
Where to eat in which district
Tashkent is large and spread out, so geography matters more than in the other cities.
Around Amir Temur square and Broadway is the visitor centre: cafes, restaurants, coffee, and the highest concentration of English menus. Convenient, not the best value.
Chorsu and the old city is where to eat cheaply and well, at the bazaar and in the chaikhanas around it. This is also where the samsa is best.
Mirabad and Alay have a cluster of mid-range restaurants, Korean places and the Alay bazaar food court, within walking distance of many hotels.
Yunusabad and the TV tower area hold the famous plov centres and a number of large family restaurants, which is why the taxi ride out is worth it at lunchtime.
The metro connects all of these for a few thousand som and beats sitting in traffic at six in the evening.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is the best plov in Tashkent?
The Central Asian Plov Centre is the famous answer and it is genuinely good, particularly before 1pm. Locals will tell you their own neighbourhood osh markazi is better, and they are often right. Either way, eat it at lunchtime.
How much does a meal cost in Tashkent?
A plov centre lunch or a bazaar meal runs to a few dollars. A mid-range restaurant is roughly 60,000 to 120,000 som a head, and international restaurants in the centre cost more. Tashkent is inexpensive by European standards at every level.
Is street food safe?
Generally yes, if it is hot, freshly cooked and busy. Samsa from a tandoor and grilled shashlik are cooked through in front of you. Be more careful with pre-cut fruit, cold dishes sitting out in summer, and unpasteurised dairy.
Can vegetarians eat well in Tashkent?
Yes, better than anywhere else in the country. Korean salads, Indian restaurants, Georgian food and dedicated vegetarian cafes all exist here. Our vegetarian guide has the phrases and the dishes.
Do I need to book?
For the well-known Uzbek restaurants on a weekend evening, yes. For plov centres, chaikhanas and bazaars, no; you queue or you find a table.
Featured image: Adam Harangozó (CC BY-SA 4.0) via Wikimedia Commons.