World Tour: Baku City of Winds

At HORECA Trend, we've decided to bring you hotels, restaurants, and cafes from different parts of the world with our " World Tour " series. Our first stop was our sister country, Azerbaijan. We spent a full week on a HORECA tour in Baku and wrote down our impressions for you.

Perfect Meat Dishes

It is said, "Let what you eat and drink, travel and tell what you see", but we will do the opposite in this series. What we ate and drank in Baku; We will tell you what we experienced in restaurants, cafes and hotels. 

When it comes to food, Baku is a geography that must be visited. I ate a significant portion of the delicious meat dishes I have eaten in my life in Baku. The taste of dishes made with lamb meat and kebabs is different. It should come as no surprise that Russia imports a significant amount of livestock and meat from Azerbaijan. 

Azerbaijan's lule kebab and tike kebabs are must-try flavors. In addition, the pot dishes they make with basmati and meat are also very successful. Appetizers and salads served with meat were also very tasty.

Different Interpretations of Chicken

Not only red meat, but also chicken has an important place in Azerbaijani cuisine. Chicken dishes are a little different from Turkey. In Azerbaijan, they flavor and prepare chicken with fruits such as cherries. It sounds different on the first try but they are really delicious.

You often see that a dish in Turkey is interpreted differently in Baku. For example, dried beans, which are consumed with pleasure as a main dish in Turkey, are included in the soup category on the menus in Baku and are drunk as soup before the meal. Jams consumed for breakfast in Turkey are eaten with tea after meals in Azerbaijan.

Tea Culture and Governesses

At the end of every meal in Baku, you find yourself drinking tea and spooning delicious jams. After returning from Baku, the thing I was looking for the most was white cherry jams. It is a pity that it is not produced enough in Turkey.

Baku has a very strong tea culture. They do not boil the tea as much as in Turkey and drink it quite “light”. Only black tea is not usually consumed, they mix it with other teas such as thyme and drink it.

Drinking tea on the shores of the Caspian Sea in the evening is an excellent experience. You should definitely try it.

Unpretentious, Assertive Places in Taste

We ate in Baku's leading restaurants such as Tonyug and Planet during our one-week trip. We had the chance to try a total of 7 restaurants in 14 days. In almost all of them, we were able to find special attention (they show special attention to their guests from Turkey, they are really hospitable) and delicacies.

In general, the venues were modest, but quite beautiful. 

Baku Hotels and Accommodation

We stayed at Divan Baku hotel for 7 days in Baku. I have stayed in Ankara, Adana and Mersin Divan hotels before in Turkey. Compared to the ones in Turkey, Divan Baku is more modest but quite adequate. The interesting part was that we felt this at the hotel every time the subway passed. However, this situation is not unique to the Divan, because a significant part of the city is in this situation. 

Source: HORECA Trend