Besh Qozon Plov Centre, Tashkent

Plov Center Tashkent: opening hours and the best time to go

The hall opens at 9:00 every day and, according to unofficial listings, stays open until 23:00. The chain’s own website gives 9:00–3:00, but that covers the whole chain and its delivery service, not this hall.

What really matters is the time of day. The cauldrons are fired up early, the plov is ready around 11:00, and the city’s lunch crowd arrives soon after — office workers, families, wedding guests. Aim for 11:00–13:00: tables are still free and every kind of plov is on.

After 14:00 some cauldrons are already empty; in the evening there may be one kind left, or none. Treat the Plov Centre as lunch, not dinner.

How much does plov cost at the Plov Centre?

The house dish is to‘y oshi, Tashkent wedding plov: 52,000 sum for a 450 g portion, 50,000 sum for a 0.7 portion (380 g) and 120,000 sum per kilo to take away. Teahouse plov costs the same. These are the prices on the chain’s official menu; the hall may differ slightly.

Unofficial accounts mention a service charge of about 12% on the bill, and you pay at the cashier rather than at the table. A filling lunch for one with salad, bread and tea comes to roughly 70,000–100,000 sum.

Payment: the chain accepts Visa and Mastercard as well as the local Uzcard and Humo cards and the Click, Payme and Uzum Bank apps. Foreign cards don’t always go through on every terminal in Uzbekistan, so carry some cash in sum as a backup.

What to order

Start with to‘y oshi. Tashkent’s wedding plov is rice cooked with lamb or beef, yellow carrots, chickpeas and raisins, topped with slices of qazi (horse sausage) and a quail egg. It is rich, so a 0.7 portion is plenty for a light eater.

The menu also lists teahouse plov, Samarkand zig‘ir osh cooked in linseed oil, plov made with devzira rice and a chicken version of wedding plov. Order the tomato-and-onion salad achichuk and a round of flatbread — locals rarely eat plov without them — and green tea.

There may be no printed menu: the waiter simply tells you what is ready today. Saying “to‘y oshi, one portion” works everywhere.

Which portion size?

The full portion costs only 2,000 sum more than the 0.7 — if you are hungry, take the full one. A kilo is packed to go.

Is the Plov Centre worth it?

Yes, if you want to see plov the way Tashkent eats it: a loud, busy canteen, steam rising from cauldrons the size of bathtubs, cooks in skullcaps tipping trays of rice into them. It is the easiest way to try wedding plov without being invited to a wedding.

It is not a restaurant for a quiet evening — think two floors of long tables, fast waiters and a lunchtime rush. The chain has been running since 1999 and has four halls in the city; the one by the TV Tower is the flagship with the cooking yard and a summer terrace, so this is the one to visit.

What to see

• The cauldron yard — watch the cooks stir and dish up plov with giant ladles; photos are fine.
• The moment a finished cauldron is tipped onto trays — usually late morning.
• The summer terrace right under the TV Tower.
• Locals buying plov by the kilo to take home.
• The TV Tower itself next door — worth a look from the outside on your way back to the metro.

How to do it right

• Arrive by 11:00–12:00, before the main lunch wave — easier to get a table, full choice of plov.
• Look into the cauldron yard first, then sit down — the cooking is half the experience.
• Not very hungry? Take a 0.7 portion; it costs almost the same but is lighter.
• Combine lunch with a morning at Chorsu Bazaar and Hazrati Imam, then ride the Tashkent Metro back to the centre.
• Keep the evening for the Navoi Theatre — plov is a lunch thing here.

Questions