Where to eat in Almaty: what to try and where locals go

Almaty is a city where Kazakh, Uzbek, Uyghur, Dungan, Korean and Russian cooking meet, and you can try all of it in one day without leaving the centre. Here is what to order and where to go.

What to try

• Beshbarmak, the main Kazakh dish: boiled meat over thin pasta with an onion sauce. Ordered for a group, eaten by hand or with a fork, washed down with sorpa broth.
• Plov, Uzbek style, cooked in a kazan with yellow carrots and chickpeas. A lunch dish, with big portions.
• Lagman, Uyghur hand-pulled noodles with meat and vegetables, in broth or fried (tsomyan).
• Samsa, baked in a tandoor, filled with lamb or pumpkin. Best hot, straight from the oven.
• Doner, Almaty's own street-food genre, with queues to prove it.
• Kumys and shubat, fermented mare's and camel's milk. Take small sips.
• Baursaks, fried dough served with tea almost everywhere.

Where to go

Breakfast. Del Cappuccino, coffee and pastries, no queue in the morning.

Street food. Doner on Abay: one in hand, and on with the route.

Lunch. Lagmankhana No. 1 for hand-pulled lagman; Tau Uzbechka for plov and tandoor samsa.

Dinner. Dadiani, khinkali, khachapuri and Georgian wine; Ukho i Medved, a gastrobar where locals actually eat; Shafran, eastern cooking for a big table.

Evening. Paulaner, a brewery with its own unfiltered beer.

Good to know

• Book a table for Friday and Saturday nights; in the centre it is the norm.
• Tips are around 10 %, often already on the bill as a service line.
• Cards are accepted everywhere, but bazaars and canteens sometimes take only cash or a transfer.
• Portions are big; sharing one between two is normal.

The full day's route is in the collection “Gastro Almaty”.