The best places for beginners to try horse meat

When in Rome! Read on to find the best place to eat horse in Almaty!

Trying Beshbarmak for the first time at Navat Restaurant

If you’re visiting Kazakhstan, then you really ought to give horse meat a shot. What a great place to visit and try something very unique! Naturally, if you’re a vegan, vegetarian, or a particular horselover, you might skip this particular experience. In which case you may move on to another of my posts (maybe check out my guide to the Green Bazaar!) as this one probably isn’t for you. I’m going to focus, as I so often do on this blog, on Almaty. However, many of the restaurants I mention here also have locations in Astana, Shymkent and even across the border in Bishkek.

Getting your head around eating horse

Horse is a regular enough meat to be found here and there’s no taboo around it. To give you some context, pork is rather tough to find, likely because of the influence of islam on the region’s food culture. Because of the taboo around pork, there isn’t much of a market for this particular meat. So while you can still find things like pork and bacon, you have to search for it. If you’re still getting your head around the idea of eating horse, consider how easily you might find and eat pork back home.

Horse is a hearty red meat, and to my mind, it tastes similar to beef. It is definitely less gamey than deer or kangaroo. Around Kazakhstan you will probably see many horses wandering around. They don’t tend to gallop much, and they are well cared-for and fed. Their lifestyle is very similar to cows.

How is horsemeat served?

Horsemeat appears in a range of Kazakh dishes, and you can find it at a number of restaurants here. It’s most notably seen in Beshbarmak, a very traditional Kazakh dish consisting of horsemeat sausage, noodles and broth. Beshbarmak is usually served on a large plate and shared banquet-style, making it an ideal way to taste test it.

Beshbarmak is a traditional Kazakh dish usually served with horsemeat

If you’d like to try horsemeat the traditional way there is a range of restaurants you can find it at. A non-exhaustive list is below.

If you prefer to try horse served in a more modern style, I have also seen it appear on the grill menu of several steak restaurants. This way is great if you are a true meatlover or you prefer your own dish (not all of us want to share!). It’s also good for those who want to explore the taste and texture of the meat. If you enjoy steak back home, then trying horsemeat steak gives you a comparable experience.

The “Traditional Way”

Eating horsemeat in a traditional Kazakh dish has the benefit of allowing you to also try some cultural cuisine. All the restaurants listed below are fabulous restaurants serving a pan central asian menu. It’s not an exhaustive list; there are many other incredible restaurants that serve beshbarmak and other horsemeat dishes. However, I haven’t had the chance to visit them all… yet. Also, there are some wonderful other restaurants that serve modern Kazakh and central asian food, but their menus don’t offer beshbarmak or horsemeat. They’re still worth trying – Kazakh cuisine is more than just beshbarmak!

Navat

A gorgeously decorated chain of restaurants across central asia, it was one of the Navat locations where I tried horsemeat for the first time. The occasion, at Navat on Dostyk Avenue, serves as both the featured image on this post and my main photo on shetravelsabroad.com! Yes, thats me enjoying my first taste of Beshbarmak! Navat does a traditional dish with wide flat noodles, horse meat and a tasty broth. It’s now the restaurant we generally take our visitors to for trying Beshbarmak. Navat restaurants are colourful and well run, offering a range of central asian cuisine in a very accessible way to foreigners. They have a full bar menu, and some of them have play areas. Many of them have ornately decorated and spacious bathrooms too. As of 2024 there are 7 Navat restaurants to choose from in Almaty.

Alasha

A very pretty restaurant with a stunning garden courtyard, serving central asian cuisine. Alasha is where my horseloving sister in law tried Beshbarmak for the first time. I suspect it was the one time only she would try horse, but she did agree it was tasty. I’d recommend visiting Alasha in the summer, when the nightly performances, complete with acrobats and dancers, take place outside under the stars. Try and get a booth outside near the performance area.

Auyl

Serving traditional Kazakh food with a twist, this is a cool and relatively new venue. Its location is a little higher up in the mountains towards Shymbulak, and is close to the Medeu Skating Rink. Auyl is part of the ABR+ restaurant group, so you know the quality and service is going to be good. Download the ABR+ app – you can pay your bills, and accumulate bonus points. The points scheme is worthwhile – they go towards your next meal at Auyl, or any of the other ABR group restaurants.

Another restaurant serving Beshbarmark is Sandyq, which I haven’t been able to get to yet. Being new in Almaty, the restaurant gets booked up, as I have found on more than one occasion! It’s a chain of restaurants across cities in Central Asia, known for having very good halal food. Note that its also the only restaurant on this list which doesn’t serve alcohol.

The “Modern Way”

If you’re maybe more interested in horsemeat for the meat itself and want to experience the taste of a horse steak, then there are plenty of restaurants catering to you. While I’ve only listed a couple of steak restaurants here, I have also seen horse listed on other restaurant menus in other modern dishes such as pasta. You just need to keep an eye out when dining out here.

Beefeater

A strange name for a place to eat horse, Beefeater is a great steak restaurant with a fabulous horse steak on the menu. Most of the meat on the menu is in fact beef, so the restaurant name is not actually deceptive! And the horse steak is a winner here. My husband and I both ordered steak here, he the horse steak, and me the rump, and his was better than mine! Now when I choose steak at Beefeater I tend to order horse. There are two Beefeater restaurants in Almaty.

Line Brew

A chain of popular brewery restaurants, Line Brew restaurant offers a great horse meat steak. While I haven’t tried the steak here yet (a local friend recommended this one to me) its on my list. However, I have been to this restaurant several times before and all their other food is great! So I have the highest confidence the horse steak will be delicious. There are 3 Line Brew restaurants in Almaty.

My Recommendation

I followed the “Traditional Way” for my first taste of horse meat, trying Beshbarmark when I first arrived in Almaty. My husband and I went to dinner at the beautiful Navat restaurant located on Dostyk Ave. The dish was great and very tasty. However, I won’t usually order Beshbarmak unless we have international visitors. I do like a grill menu, so if I eat horsemeat now, its generally as a steak.

Beshbarmak was a great way to introduce myself to eating a new meat though. Being a shared dish it’s a safer option. You can take a small taste test, and if you don’t like it, you don’t have to take any more and just eat whatever other dishes you have on the table. I usually take visitors to Navat or Alasha as I reckon they’re some of the best places to try horse meat for first timers.

What do I know about Kazakhstan?

I’ve been living here since mid 2021 with my family. Visit my About Me page to understand more about my perspective. And check out my Kazakhstan page to find out more about why I think why you should travel to Kazakhstan! Also, I have the following blog posts on Kazakhstan!