Food & Drink

Cuisine in Azerbaijan is a combination of Turkish and central Asian dishes, kebabs, rich soups, spinach, chickpeas, rice and yoghurt. Sturgeon is available, normally skewered and grilled as a kebab, and served with a tart sour-plum sauce.

Typical Azeri desserts are sticky, syrup-saturated pastries such as pakhlava or halva. The latter, a layer of chopped nuts sandwiched between mats of thread-like fried dough, is unique to Sheki.

Tea houses serve sweet black tea in tiny glasses and are traditionally drunk with a sugar lump. Special tea is also made of cinnamon and ginger, and a spoonful of rose water is often added to tea by the Lezgins in the north. Local wines and brandies, and Russian vodka available.