What to eat in Uzbekistan: 12 dishes and where we take our guests

People arrive in Uzbekistan expecting kebabs and leave talking about bread. The food here is generous, seasonal and built around a few ingredients done extremely well: lamb, rice, onions, yellow carrots, fresh herbs, and fruit that tastes the way fruit used to taste. Here is the list we give every guest, with the places we actually go.

1. Plov (osh)

The national dish, and a different dish in every city. Rice cooked in a cast-iron kazan with lamb, carrots, onions and oil, with chickpeas, raisins or quail eggs depending on where you are. Tashkent plov is rich and dark; Samarkand layers the ingredients and keeps the rice pale; Bukhara adds raisins and sometimes a sweet note. Eaten at lunch, never at dinner — a plov house at 13:00 is one of the great scenes of Uzbek life.

Where: the Central Asian Plov Centre in Tashkent for the spectacle; a family courtyard in Samarkand for the taste. We run a cooking masterclass that starts in the bazaar.

2. Non (bread)

Round, stamped, baked against the wall of a clay tandir oven. Every city has its own: Samarkand bread is heavy and keeps for weeks, Bukhara's is thin and layered, Khiva's is small and crisp. Bread is never placed upside down and never thrown away — tear it, don't cut it.

3. Samsa

Pastry parcels baked in the tandir, filled with lamb and onion, or pumpkin in autumn, or greens in spring. Best bought hot from a roadside oven on the way to Shakhrisabz or outside the Chorsu bazaar in Tashkent.

4. Shashlik

Skewered meat over charcoal. Lamb is the classic; ask for jigar (liver wrapped in fat) if you are brave, and kiyma (minced) if you want it tender. Always served with raw onion and vinegar, always with bread.

5. Lagman

Hand-pulled noodles in a spiced broth with peppers, meat and vegetables — Uyghur in origin, now everywhere. The Fergana Valley version is the best; in Tashkent look for a Uyghur sign.

6. Manti

Large steamed dumplings with lamb and onion, served with sour cream and a sprinkle of black pepper. Pumpkin manti in October are a highlight.

7. Shurpa

Slow-cooked lamb soup with whole vegetables — the dish for a cold evening in Khiva.

8. Shivit oshi — the green noodles of Khiva

Noodles coloured bright green with dill, topped with a meat-and-potato stew and sour cream. You will only find it in Khorezm, and you should.

9. Dimlama

A layered stew of meat and vegetables steamed in its own juice — the home-cooking dish, best eaten at a family table.

10. Achichuk and the salads

The simple tomato-and-onion salad that appears at every meal, plus aubergine rolls, pickled vegetables and the herb plate. In spring, ask for chuchvara with greens.

11. Melons, grapes and pomegranates

September is the month. Mirzachul melons are famous across the former Soviet Union; a cut melon at the end of lunch is standard. Dried apricots, walnuts and kurt (salty dried cheese balls) are the snacks for the train.

12. Tea, and what goes with it

Green tea (kok choy) all day, poured three times back into the pot before serving — this is etiquette, not fussiness. With it: halva, navat crystal sugar, sweet sumalak at Navruz. Coffee has arrived in the big cities but tea is still the culture.

Eating well without worrying

• Eat where it is busy and the turnover is fast. Empty restaurants are the risk, not street food.
• Tap water is not for drinking; bottled water is cheap and everywhere.
• Vegetarians manage well: pumpkin samsa, manti, salads, soups without meat on request, and the bread. Vegans find it harder but we plan around it on private trips.
• Alcohol is available (local wine from Samarkand is better than you expect) but not assumed — a tea house is the default.

Frequently asked