Food guide
What to Eat in Kyrgyzstan, From the Dasturkhan to the Bazaar
Kyrgyz food comes from two traditions: the herders of the mountains, with their mutton, horse meat and dairy, and the oases and bazaars of the Silk Road, with their noodles, dumplings and bread from the clay oven. Every meal in a home begins at the dasturkhan, the table spread for guests, and in summer the high pastures bring the freshest cream and kymyz. Bishkek and Osh add the cooking of the whole region, from Uyghur noodles to the plov of the Fergana Valley.
Updated 2026-10-08
The dasturkhan
A guest in a Kyrgyz home is first seated at the dasturkhan, a cloth or low table laid with round loaves of bread, boorsok, small squares of fried dough, butter and thick cream, jam, sweets, dried fruit and nuts, with bowl after bowl of tea. Bread is treated with respect, broken by hand and never set upside down, and the meal proper comes only after the tea.
Beshbarmak and the meat dishes
Beshbarmak, the dish of celebrations and of guests, is boiled mutton or horse meat cut fine and served over flat noodles with an onion broth, its name meaning “five fingers” for the way it was eaten. Shashlik, skewers of grilled meat, is cooked over charcoal in every town, and horse-meat sausage is a delicacy of feasts and bazaars.
Noodles, dumplings and pastries
Lagman, hand-pulled noodles in a spiced sauce of meat and vegetables, came with the Uyghur and Dungan communities and is eaten everywhere, fried or in broth. Manty, large steamed dumplings of meat and onion, and samsa, pastries of the same filling baked against the wall of a clay tandoor, fill the menus of the cafés and bazaars. In Karakol, the Dungan cold noodle dish ashlyan-fu, in a sour, peppery broth, is the town's own.
Kymyz and the drinks of the pastures
Kymyz, mare's milk fermented in summer, is lightly sour, slightly fizzy and mildly alcoholic, and it is offered to every guest on the jailoo, the summer pastures, and sold along the mountain roads in season. Kurut, small balls of dried, salty curd, are the herders' snack and keep for months, and maksym, a drink of fermented grain, is sold from barrels in the towns in summer.
Bazaars and the south
The bazaars are the best place to taste the country: dried apricots, raisins, walnuts, honey, kurut and bread from the oven. In the south, around Osh and Jalal-Abad, the cooking is closer to that of the Fergana Valley, with plov, rice cooked with mutton and carrots in a great cauldron, at the centre of the table.
Practical points
Most dishes are built on meat, and vegetarians ask for salads, eggs, bread, dairy and vegetable soups, with more choice in Bishkek. Tea comes with every meal, and accepting at least one bowl is the polite answer to a host. Alcohol is served in restaurants and sold in shops, though many families do not drink.