Where to Try Plov in Tashkent (& Where to Avoid It)
In this guide, I will share an array of places to eat plov in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. It will include both tourist-friendly spots and ones that operate a bit more ‘local’. Plov is one of the best things about Uzbekistan (trust me!) and I encourage you to plan accordingly so you don’t miss out on this iconic dish.
Before diving into my favorite spots, I will share a little bit about plov, how to eat it, and a food tour I recommend to try it with a local. At the end of the guide, I will also tell you a couple of places to avoid eating plov in Tashkent.
Quick Tashkent Travel Guide
If you’re traveling to Tashkent at the last minute, be sure you have hotels and tours booked ahead of time. Below are some of my top picks:
🇺🇿 Best tours and activities from Tashkent:
- Tashkent food and metro tour (you’ll try several plovs on this tour!)
- Full-day tour to Amirsoy, Chimgan & Charvak (top Tashkent day tour)
- Tashkent city tour and highlights (only a half-day excursion)
🛌 Top hotels and lodging in Tashkent:
- Home Boutique Hotel (where I stay after a lot of trial and error; amazing value)
- Hotel Moderno & Spa (located off of Rustaveli)
- Oscar Boutique Hotel (situated not far from the airport)
🍲 My favorite places to eat in Tashkent: Afsona, Bazar Restaurant, Besh Qozon, Anjir Restaurant
🚗 Want a seamless way to get from the Tashkent Airport to the city center? This Tashkent Airport transfer is cheap and easy!
I have a few Central Asian go-to dishes… meaning that when I need a comfort food in the region, I gravitate towards one of two dishes: laghman and Uzbek plov. I could eat these dishes at any given time and I will never tire of them (my stomach has a different opinion on this, however).
Uzbek plov is the queen of pilafs in the region. It is simply superior and no one can argue otherwise. And to make things even more interesting, several regional plov variations fall under ‘Uzbek plov’, meaning that it is totally acceptable to eat a lot of plov on your trip to Uzbekistan!
I had been wanting to put together a Tashkent plov guide for a while, but the field research has required multiple trips to Uzbekistan’s capital city. I finally have a list of some solid places to try the coveted dish.
The reason I put this guide together was to share some tips about how to eat it and where to enjoy it. Some places in this guide are very foreigner-friendly with English menus and staff that speak English.
Other places in this guide offer a different experience where there may or may not be an English menu, and you pay at a Kassa, which can be a bit stressful if you’re not prepared to do so.
If you have a favorite restaurant for plov in Tashkent, please let me know in the comments. This list is by no means conclusive. This is simply an array of spots where you can try the famous dish independently.
In this guide, I’ll walk you through the following:
History of Plov in Uzbekistan
Plov has a rich history in Uzbekistan, but originally made its way to Central Asia from Persia (the word for plov in Farsi is ‘polow’) via the Silk Road. It is cooked in a ‘kazan’, a large, cast-iron pot, with an oil base. Today, it sits on UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity list and is one of the first things I seek out when I land in Uzbekistan (or Central Asia, for that matter).
There are several regional variations of Uzbek plov, including ones from Samarkand (possibly the most famous), Fergana Valley, Bukhara, Khorezm, and Tashkent.
On menus, you may see two different types of plov:
- toy oshi (festive or wedding plov; often has dried fruits, a quail egg, chickpeas, etc., and can be sweeter)
- chaikhana oshi (teahouse plov; heavier on the meat and often has a heavily browned onion base; more savory)
Why ‘oshi’ or ‘osh’? Honestly, the word just means dish, but has become synonymous with plov. Although you may see it in dishes like ‘shivit oshi’ in Khiva (which is noodle-based).
Sometimes the chaikhana oshi comes with a chili pepper or garlic that you can smash into it. But it has come out differently each time I have ordered it. Both are delicious!
Plov will mostly be cooked with beef as a standard. However, Fergana Valley plov can often use lamb, so if you’re not keen on this, opt for a different variation.
How (& When) to Eat Plov
Don’t stress about how you eat it so much – locals are just happy you’re in Uzbekistan! But here are a few things you may want to consider (or may notice when there).
Spoon, Fork, or Hands?
But you will notice that locals eat it with a spoon (or hands), so opt for that utensil over a fork if you want.
Achichuk
You will also see tables with bowls of tomatoes and onions on them. This is a salad called ‘Achichuk’ (it may be spelled differently, but you’ll know the word when you see it) and it cuts through the heaviness of the plov. Definitely order it. Usually, you throw a little salt and pepper on it and then eat it while enjoying your plov.
Tea Time
Don’t leave the restaurant without ordering a pot of tea after your plov. In Tashkent, they tend to drink black tea, so you can order that with your dish. When the tea arrives, you will let it sit for 5 minutes or so and then pour half a cup, and pour that back into the pot.
Do this 3 times before pouring to drink (and only fill up halfway in the cup when you pour to drink). Usually, the youngest person at the table pours the tea in Uzbekistan (which feels like this person is rarely me anymore).
Time of Day to Eat Plov
Plov is actually a daytime dish in Uzbekistan. It is heavy, so Uzbeks don’t usually eat it for dinner. But enjoy it at your will.
If it is on a menu, it’s good to order… just know that usually there are a few times a day that it is made in a large kazan, so if they don’t have it when you’re at the place, this could be the reason.
Should you try plov on a food tour in Tashkent?
Honestly, the best way to try a few plov styles in Tashkent is to join a food tour. My friends over at Craft&Culture have a 4-hour food and metro tour that is spectacular. You’ll start at the Chorsu Bazaar, ride the metro for a bit, and end up at a restaurant that offers various styles of plov. And you will be with a local, so you don’t need to stress about the ordering or payment… You just eat!
I did this food tour in Tashkent, and we ended up at Besh Qozon, a famous plov spot in Tashkent. It can be intimidating for first-timers in the city, so it is nice to have a local with you to help you navigate the space to find a table.
The guide (in my case, Yusuf, one of the founders!) also takes you into the area where plov is cooking for photos and an explanation of what is going on.
Click here to check rates and availability for a Tashkent food tour (with plov!)
Places to Try Plov in Tashkent
The places I picked for this guide are mostly all foreigner-friendly. And what I mean by that is that you’ll be seated, given an English menu, and probably will only deal with the ordering process in English. You will also pay for your meal directly to your waiter.
Two places in this guide can be intimidating: Besh Qozon and Anjir. Locals really stressed me out about Anjir before going (spoiler: it was easy, but I’ll explain later). I visited Besh Qozon with the aforementioned food tour, but it seemed to be littered with tourists and locals both, meaning it is probably the easier of the two. When I visited Anjir, I appeared to be the only tourist in there.
I will walk you through the process of both under their respective sections.
I also have left out a few popular plov spots like the Plov Museum and Plov Center. Honestly, I haven’t made it to either yet… but I will check out in the future and put on this guide if I enjoy them.
1. Anjir Restaurant
📍 Address: Shota Rustaveli Street 12
🔗 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/anjir_milliy_taomlari/
⏰ Hours: daily from 9am to 11pm
💵 Price of plov at Anjir: 46000 UZS for both festive plov and chaikhana plov (about $3.80)
This was my favorite place for plov in Tashkent, hands-down. But this may be because mine was topped with pieces of fried lamb fat on it. I ordered their chaikhana plov.
Anjir was a place that was recommended to me by several locals, but always with the warning, “This is not the easiest place to eat plov for foreigners”.
After going there, I realized that it is simply the non-English menu and paying elsewhere that makes it the most challenging. The deliciousness of the plov makes the experience worth it. No wonder the location I visited on Rustaveli is rated a 5.0 on Yandex Maps with 9,000 reviews.
If you go here, I highly encourage going at a weird hour. I went around 2pm. This place is packed during standard mealtimes and the staff literally runs around (they ran around when I was there and it wasn’t even that crowded).
When you’re there, you’ll be seated, and they will ensure you’re well taken care of since you’re not local. The menu I was given was in Uzbek and it was pretty easy to identify what I wanted: the chaikhana plov. I also ordered achichuk, bread, and water.
The food came out quickly and when you’re done, you will need to request the check from your server. Then you’ll proceed toward the front door to the right, where you’ll see a booth that says ‘Kassa’. You can pay here. They take both cash and card. The process is far less intimidating than locals made it out to be, but I understand their concern since it is a hyperlocal spot.
2. Xan Kokand
📍 Address: Yahyo Gulyamov 38 (C1)
🔗 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/xankokand/
⏰ Hours: daily from 11am to 11pm
💵 Price of plov at Xan Kokand: 79000 UZS ($6.58) for Kokand plov and 57000 UZS ($4.75) for festive plov
My friend found this place right after I ate lunch the other day, so naturally, I set out to eat Lunch #2 (no shame). Xan Kokand is a newer spot, only open for around 7 months when we went there, and a delicious one that focuses on food from the Fergana Valley.
I ordered their Kokand plov and it was very tasty. We also enjoyed some mastava, regional bread, halva, lemonades, and more. Their achichuk came with qurt shaved on top of it, giving it a rich, umami flavor.
The menu at Xan Kokand was only in Russian when I went there but since they are new, I imagine they will create English menus if the demand is there (meaning… go visit!).
3. Besh Qozon
📍 Address: 4 locations in Tashkent (can be seen on their website)
🔗 Website: https://beshqozon.uz/en
⏰ Hours: daily from 9am to 3am
💵 Price of plov at Besh Qozon: 59000 UZS ($4.91) for Devzira Fergana Valley plov, 52000 UZS ($4.33) for Samarkand plov, 50000 UZS ($4.16) for chaikhana plov, 50000 UZS ($4.16) for festive plov
Besh Qozon is the king of plov spots in Tashkent. There are a few locations and you can watch them prepare it in a huge kazan before heading to your seat to enjoy some.
I ate at Besh Qozon as part of the Tashkent food tour I took, but I do recommend you head to one of their locations even if you opt out of a food tour. The restaurant offers plov variations from a couple of places around Uzbekistan, including Samarkand and the Fergana Valley.
While you’ll see a ton of locals dining here, it is also popular with tourists, making it slightly more foreigner-friendly than Anjir, my favorite spot.
It is packed during lunch hours, so try to head there at a weird hour to avoid the crowds. Once you find a seat, order and enjoy! You will need to request your check from the server and head downstairs toward the door to pay at the marked ‘Kassa’.
4. Afsona
📍 Address: Shevchenko 28 and Tashkent City
🔗 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/afsona_restaurant/
⏰ Hours: daily from 11am to 11pm
💵 Price of plov at Afsona: 90000 UZS ($7.50) for chaikhana plov, 65000 UZS ($5.41) for festive plov, and 50000 UZS ($4.16) for vegetarian plov
Afsona is one of the two very easy places to enjoy plov in Tashkent in this guide. They have a few locations across Tashkent, as well as a few more in various cities across the country. I have eaten there twice: once at their Shevchenko location and once at their Tashkent City location. Both were delicious.
Another perk of dining at Afsona is that they offer a fruit plov, which is fantastic for vegetarians wanting to eat plov in Tashkent.
5. Uzbekona
📍 Address: Matbuotchilar Street 1/2
🔗 Website: https://uzbekona.delever.uz/en
⏰ Hours: daily from 11am to 11pm
💵 Price of plov at Uzbekona: 64000 UZS (about $5.33)
Uzbekona is a newer restaurant in Tashkent and the interior is as beautiful as the food is good. The menu has a variety of dishes, including the Tashkent plov that I opted for. It was delicious!
The interior is worth visiting for, and they even have an open kitchen and bakery where you can watch everything get made. The menu was in English and my server spoke impeccable English, making the ordering process very seamless.
Tashkent Plov Spots to Avoid
Taste is subjective, but there are two places I would avoid. The first is the Chorsu Bazaar. I just think there are better things to opt for at the Chorsu Bazaar than the plov. You can get the plov cheaper with a set price at a restaurant.
Do, however, go to the Chorsu Bazaar! It should be on every single Tashkent itinerary!
The second place I didn’t love for plov was Boboy. They have a few locations across Tashkent and I went to their Shevchenko location and their new Hast Imam location (I was staying beside it). The Shevchenko one was much better than the Hast-Imam one, but I thought the food was average at both.
Have any questions about where to try plov in Tashkent, Uzbekistan? Let me know in the comments. And also let me know if you have a tasty recommendation that I can try when I am back in Tashkent (and can hopefully throw on this guide).
