Where to Eat in Tashkent: 5 Restaurants for Plov and Uzbek Food

Tashkent eats on a big scale: plov cooked for hundreds of people at lunchtime, large dining rooms built like old houses, and long evening meals with music. For the sights, see our Tashkent destination page. This guide picks five restaurants that are well known, easy to reach by taxi or metro, and still open as of October 2026 — a short list for travellers, not a ranking.

Key facts

• Five places: Besh Qozon (plov centre), Caravan, Afsona, Navvat and Tandiriy — all serving Uzbek cuisine.
• Plov is a lunch dish: it is cooked in the morning and served from midday; plov centres can run out in the early afternoon.
• Evenings: the larger restaurants often have live music and fill up with families and groups; book a table for dinner.
• Bill: many sit-down restaurants in Tashkent add a service charge — check the menu or ask.
• Alcohol: not every place serves it; the plov centre does not.
• Diet: traditional cooking is meat-heavy, but salads, vegetable samsa and pumpkin manti are common.

How we chose these restaurants

We looked for places that travellers and locals both use, that have recent reviews dated 2025–2026 on at least two independent platforms, and that are easy to find. Opening hours and prices change, so we do not print them; check a map app before you go. None of the restaurants pays for a mention, and none of them is a partner of TravelBliss.

Besh Qozon (Central Asian Plov Centre)

Besh Qozon — "five cauldrons" — is the plov centre at the foot of the Tashkent TV Tower in Yunusabad. It is a huge hall with an open terrace, and the cooking is part of the show: plov is made in giant kazans and served from them in front of you. Several restaurants in the city use similar names; the original is the one by the TV Tower.

What to order: wedding plov (to'y oshi) topped with slices of kazy horse sausage and a quail egg, achichuk salad of tomato and onion, and fresh non bread. Green tea comes with almost everything.

Good to know: come before 12:00 for the full choice of plov; by early afternoon some kinds may be gone. The menu is short and the turnover fast, so this is a lunch stop rather than a long evening.

Caravan

Caravan, on Abdulla Qahhor street in the centre, is set in a traditional Uzbek house with handmade decor and a small courtyard, and it feels like a caravanserai. It is one of the city's established addresses for national cuisine, with themed evenings of music and dance.

What to order: plov from the big kazan, manti, qurutob (flatbread soaked in a sauce of qurut, dried yogurt) and shashlik.

Good to know: it is on the upper side of mid-range. Book for dinner, especially on weekends and in spring and autumn.

Afsona

Afsona, on Taras Shevchenko street in central Tashkent, serves Uzbek dishes in a modern dining room decorated with national patterns and wood. It opened a second restaurant on the Tashkent City boulevard in late 2024; this guide means the original on Shevchenko street.

What to order: plov, manti — including the pumpkin version — qozon kabob (meat and potatoes fried in a kazan) and samsa. Vegetarian travellers usually find more choice here than in a plov centre.

Good to know: mid-range to upper mid-range, with a service charge on the bill. A good first dinner if you want the classics in a calm room.

Navvat

Navvat is a national-style restaurant and teahouse on Sayilgoh street, the pedestrian avenue known as Broadway, a short walk from Amir Timur Square. You reach it through a passage off the promenade; inside are large halls, an open courtyard and a terrace, with live music on some evenings.

What to order: shashlik, pumpkin manti, samsa and plov, with a pot of green tea.

Good to know: service can be slow at busy times, and reviewers mention the service charge. It works well as an evening stop after a walk along Broadway.

Tandiriy

Tandiriy, in the Tashkent City area, is named after the tandir clay oven. It has two floors decorated somewhere between a traditional house and a museum, with folk music and shows in the evenings.

What to order: tandir lamb (meat slow-cooked in the clay oven), colourful manti, qozon kabob, and quince cooked in honey for dessert.

Good to know: prices are in the upper mid-range and it is popular with visitors, so evenings with a show can be busy.

Which one to choose

• One lunch, the most typical experience: Besh Qozon for plov.
• A first dinner in a traditional setting: Caravan.
• Classic dishes in a modern room, more vegetarian choice: Afsona.
• An evening after a walk in the centre: Navvat on Broadway.
• Tandir cooking and a show: Tandiriy.

Practical tips

• Plov before 13:00: at plov centres the widest choice is around noon.
• Book dinner in season: spring and autumn are busy, and weekend evenings fill up with family celebrations.
• Ask before you order: whether cards are accepted, whether a service charge applies and, if it matters to you, whether alcohol is served.
• Carry some cash in som: useful for taxis, bazaars and small cafés.
• Use a map app for the exact entrance: some places, such as Navvat, are entered through a courtyard or passage.
• Bread etiquette: non is broken by hand, shared by the table and never placed upside down.

Plan it with TravelBliss

On our Modern Tashkent private city tour your guide can suggest a lunch stop on the way, and on the 7-day Gastronomic Tour of Uzbekistan the meals are part of the programme. For the history of the national dish, read our guide to Uzbek plov; for the rest of the country, see where to eat in Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva. Prices depend on the number of travellers and the season — see the tour page or contact us.