Is horse meat safe to eat, and what does it taste like?

Yes. Horse meat here is lean, healthy and treated as a delicacy rather than a novelty. Neither the taste nor the smell is difficult — if nobody told you, you would read it as a slightly sweeter beef.

Where can I try beshbarmak in Almaty?

The Green Bazaar is the place to start: Green Cafe inside it serves a 7/10 version that works as your benchmark. For a restaurant version with a view, Auyl at Medeu does a smarter take, at 7–7.5/10.

What makes a good beshbarmak?

A properly boiled, good piece of meat, and noodles rolled to the right thickness — closer to fresh lasagne sheets than to anything thin. A serious version will also carry kazy and zhaya, the cured horse cuts.

All things beshbarmak

Beshbarmak is the most comfort of comfort food for Kazakhs, and the thing we miss most when we live abroad. If you eat one dish here that is actually ours, make it this one.

The whole trick is two things done properly: a really good piece of meat, boiled well, and noodles rolled to the right thickness — think fresh lasagne sheets rather than anything thin and delicate. Everything else is detail.

Do not be afraid of the horse meat. It is lean, it is healthy, and here it is a delicacy rather than a dare — neither the taste nor the smell is going to unsettle you. A genuinely good version will also come with kazy and zhaya, the cured horse cuts, and their presence is the quickest signal that the kitchen is taking the dish seriously.

Where I have eaten it

These numbers score the beshbarmak and nothing else. They are not the espresso scale from how I rate — one dish, eaten by me, marked out of ten.

A bowl of beshbarmak at the Green Bazaar: flat noodles in broth under boiled meat and rounds of kazy, with onion, a piece of potato, spring onion and ground pepper over the top

Green Cafe, inside the Green Bazaar — 7/10

Your benchmark. Eat this one first, and you will know what the dish is supposed to be before you spend restaurant money on it. Then go besh hunting. The bazaar on the map.

Auyl, at Medeu — 7–7.5/10

Kazakh food done posh, up in the mountains. The food is good, but be honest with yourself about what you are paying for: the evening mountain scene out of the window is most of the bill. Maps.

A full table at Auyl: beshbarmak in the centre with wide sheets of noodle, boiled meat and onion on top, a bowl of sorpa beside it, samsa, kuyrdak and a lamb shank in broth around the edge

That is a whole table rather than one order: the besh is the bowl in the middle, with the sorpa next to it and the rest of the meal around it. Order like this and the price stops being about a single dish.

Sandyq, Abylai Khan 55 — 8/10, from 2023

Kazakh cooking read through a modern kitchen: the besh arrives in a wooden bowl with the noodle sheets cut wide, and the rest of the order is plated the way a restaurant plates. The number is as high as any on this page, and it is also the oldest thing about the entry — the 8 was earned at the table below, in March 2023. A strong lead rather than a current verdict. Maps.

A table at Sandyq: beshbarmak in a wooden bowl with sheets of noodle, boiled meat, potato and rounds of carrot, a rack of lamb in a second wooden bowl, and a tomato and cucumber salad on a patterned metal plate

Beshbarmak, inside the Green Bazaar — 8/10, but the number is old

It is last on this list on purpose. The 8 was earned years ago, with the old staff; I have not been in 2026, and going by recent reviews the owners have changed. Worth your curiosity, not your trust — until one of us goes back. The bazaar on the map.

What the guides will tell you

Navat turns up in every list of where to eat Kazakh food in Almaty — including Condé Nast Traveller Middle East's. It would not be my own first choice. If you want that kind of room, try Tubeteika instead: it is a solid place, though I have not eaten the beshbarmak there, so I am not scoring it. Maps.

If you want to read someone arriving at this food from the outside, the same magazine ran a piece on coming to know Kazakhstan through its food.

Two shortcuts

Beshbarmak cooked at home: sliced boiled meat and rounds of kazy fanned over the noodle sheets on a gold-rimmed plate, scattered with spring onion

The best beshbarmak in this city is not sold. If you have friends here and they invite you to dinner, that is the version to eat — no restaurant is trying as hard as somebody's family.

A family-sized beshbarmak at home: a wide blue-rimmed platter of boiled meat and potatoes under rings of raw onion and spring onion, with pickles and kimchi in dishes around it

That is what is meant by somebody's family: one platter for the table, potatoes in with the meat, raw onion over the top, and whatever pickles the house keeps set down around it. Nobody plates this individually.

Failing that: if you have rented an apartment, order it on Wolt, sort by rating, and split it with whoever you are travelling with. Beshbarmak is built for a table, not for one person.

One warning

Beshbarmak made with cured meat is salty — properly salty. That is not a fault in the cooking, it is what curing does, but it catches people out on the first mouthful. Drink accordingly.

If you would rather not have besh

My own favourite local chain is Paradise, and the branch across from the Kazakhstan hotel is the one I go to. I order the lagman — the Central Asian noodle dish — almost every time. Maps.

Everything else I eat here — Dungan noodles, khachapuri, the doner — is on the food page.

Questions people actually ask

Is horse meat safe to eat, and what does it taste like?: Yes. Horse meat here is lean, healthy and treated as a delicacy rather than a novelty. Neither the taste nor the smell is difficult — if nobody told you, you would read it as a slightly sweeter beef.
Where can I try beshbarmak in Almaty?: The Green Bazaar is the place to start: Green Cafe inside it serves a 7/10 version that works as your benchmark. For a restaurant version with a view, Auyl at Medeu does a smarter take, at 7–7.5/10.
What makes a good beshbarmak?: A properly boiled, good piece of meat, and noodles rolled to the right thickness — closer to fresh lasagne sheets than to anything thin. A serious version will also carry kazy and zhaya, the cured horse cuts.

Last updated 11 October 2026.