Uzbekistan is known for beautiful mosques covered in blue and turquoise tiles, madrassas (former schools) and – a diet heavy on meat. So who in their right mind would dare to organize a vegan trip to this country – one of only two double-landlocked countries in the world, by the way (can you guess the other one?). Well, visiting this “Stan” has always been on my mind but I wasn´t sure it could be done as a vegan. So, inspired by a short reel (thank you @lokalvegan) I saw a while back, I started looking for a tour agency and local contacts that could help us.
Thankfully, there is a vegan tour company in Tashkent (you can book it here or dm-them on instagram https://www.instagram.com/uzvegtours ), the nation´s capital, run by Akmal – while Akmal and his colleague Sayyid usually take visitors to Tashkent´s famous Chorsu market, I asked him to help us figure out the ins and outs of the places we would visit on our trip: Khiva, Bukhara, Samarkand and of course Tashkent, where most international flights land as well.
To say that Uzbekistan is not very vegan friendly is quite the understatement. As of September 2026, there is not a single vegan restaurant in the country of about 40 million people and only two vegetarian ones – one in Samarkand – called SamarKind (the day we were going to visit, it closed in front of our eyes due to a medical issue), one in Tashkent (Sunrise Vegetarian Kitchen, an Indian restaurant, which does not totally understand vegan as reported by a member of our group who arrived a few days early). The only vegan restaurant sadly closed down a while back.
With lots of research (again, thanks Akmal!), lots of self-imported foods (I brought food from the US and my native Austria – stuff like shelf-stable tofu, sweet and savory snacks and savory spreads for breakfast), I met six curious world travelers in early September to start our exploration of this Central Asian country – I think I was pretty clear that this would be a pioneering and not always easy trip, but thankfully, everyone in our group turned out to be up for the challenge.
Knowing all the made-for-us menus of the restaurants we were going to eat while traveling made me feel much more confident, but breakfast was still a big question mark. So, when I asked at the first hotel whether they had soy milk, I received a tiny bowl with soy sauce! I had brought some plant milks and powders with me as well, of course, so all good, but it was an interesting start.
We met with a chef (from India) at the hotel who promised to get us tofu for the next day´ s breakfast – yet, when I asked someone the next day whether he knew anything about our tofu, he replied “what is tofu?” – and he wouldn´t be the only person to ask (again, we also had our own and I even ended up cooking it up at one of the hotels).
September is a great season to come here as fruit and veg are at their peak – tomatoes are super tasty as are their melons, for example. Walking Chorsu Bazaar in Tashkent, I realized I had never seen that many onions – walls full of bagged and loose onions – a key ingredient in the national dish Plov, a rice dish and onions were ubiquitous in basically every dish we had.
You might wonder what we did eat? Food was much more varied and tasty as expected, I would say, but everything was ordered a few days in advance, so do not expect to just order off menus without a heads-up at most places – I would highly recommend that your local guide or someone from your hotel calls ahead a few days out to avoid disappointments.
We had fresh salads at every meal (thankfully, none got really sick from it and avoiding salads here would be very difficult), then usually a soup, a main dish of either stuffed vegetables, vegetable stir fry, noodles, dumplings or plov, bread and tea.
Uzbek bread is absolutely beautiful as it often gets stamped to create a little pattern and is super fresh – but, many times, we ended up refusing the bread as it was either confirmed to contain dairy or we were unsure (when the restaurant purchased it from a local bakery and couldn´t confirm).
Did we have any major mishaps? I would say one sticks out: on our way from the fort city of Khiva to Bukhara overland by bus, we stopped for lunch at a rest stop – mind you, this is in the middle of the Uzbek desert. Just like the other meals, this one was confirmed and double and triple checked by our local agency but once the soup arrived and I took a whiff, I knew something was off as it just smelled too much like meat broth. At first, the restaurant insisted that the soup did not contain anything we would not eat. Thankfully, our guide and our Russian-speaking guest (thank you, Dasha!) were able to get a hold of the “seasoning” they used: a beef flavored bouillon powder which listed beef as one of the ingredients in a tiny font.
We also had two “vegan” salads arrive with cheese on top, which were quickly re-made without the cheese. Thankfully, we were never accidentally served any meat.
I would also like to positively mention that, especially considering how meat-heavy their diet is, we hardly ever got to smell or see much of it, thankfully.
Here are some of our favorite places:
Tashkent:
Cafe 1991 – located close to the Amir Timur square in Tashkent, this restaurant lists both vegan and vegetarian dishes on their menu – we chose the tofu with vegetables and the soup with buckwheat noodles, vegetables and tofu, which also contained falafel – never had falafel in soup but it is quite good, actually.
Kok chuchvara – serves salads and green dumplings/noodles
Our lunch featuring Hanum, a potato and tomato-pasta dish as part of the food tour at Chorsu market
Khiva: We stayed at a lovely guesthouse called Ully Oi and while the owner, Dilores, was very nervous about what she could prepare for us initially, managed to cook up a feast for us – lovely, super central place to stay that I would definitely recommend.
Breakfasts in general had a decent variety of accidentally vegan items such as fruit, dried fruits, nuts, hummus, various fresh or pickled veggies and some warm dishes. Many dishes are cooked with oil rather than butter or animal fat, and we often found sauteed veggies and a bean dish on the buffet (plus the stuff we had brought).
Our meals in Khiva were at Terrace, a very popular place on the main square (salads, grilled veggies, gave them our sausages to grill, fruit) and at Mirzaboshi Cafe, where we had a hands-on demo of how to make green noodles called Shivit Oshi – they usually contain egg but can, upon request, easily be made without.
On to Bukhara where we enjoyed our first plov, Uzbekistan´s most traditional and popular rice dish – somewhat similar to Biryani I would say. We enjoyed it at Rahmon-Suzani sewer’s family/workshop. Our other, much more hands-on plov making experience was back in Tashkent with Uzveg Tours, lots of fun and educational! I would highly recommend both!
Another great meal we enjoyed in Bukhara was at Joy, one of the very few restaurants that actually list vegan and vegetarian items on the menu. Their Kuyaish, a dish reminiscent of lasagna soup with lots of beans, was super tasty!
Taam, located a bit outside of the center, cooked up a wonderful vegan feast for us – if you go there without letting them know that you are vegan first, they can make you a nice salad, but I highly recommend calling ahead and you might get samsa (stuffed pastries filled with potato or pumpkin), great salads, a soup with tofu skin (!).
While the food was very good at Kukaldosh Garden, I would not recommend to eat there as they had gorgeous birds trapped in tiny cages hanging from the canopies – we did speak to the manager about it and he said he would release them but I honestly doubt it will happen.
Once in Samarkand, we enjoyed a meal at Lola´s Family home, an absolutely delightful experience and a really nice dinner at Old City restaurant, featuring Moshkichiri, a mung bean dish – doesn’t look pretty at all but was super tasty.
Manhattan restaurant (loads of people from Samarkand moved to NYC) also served us good vegan food, including an emulsion of herbs which looked very much like it was made of dairy, but was not. The brand new Hilton Garden Inn Sogd, located a bit outside of the city in a brand new development, surprised us with a wonderful breakfast buffet and made us chia, passionfruit and pistachio puddings.
To sum it up, I would say that Uzbekistan is definitely doable but I would not travel there without planning my meals carefully and having a backup. The concept of veganism or even vegetarianism is not very well know here, so I suggest packing lots of patience in addition to snacks.
Curious to experience Uzbekistan yourself? Well, we are doing it again next year, are you coming? All the details can be found here: https://www.wetravel.com/trips/uzbekistan-vegan-silk-road-adventure-2027-vegan-tours-ny-6198794941
