Uzbek Cooking Class with Lunch from Registan Square

The Uzbek Cooking Class with Lunch is a half-day cooking experience in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, sold through Civitatis, a Spanish online platform for guided activities. The listing gives a price from about US$62 per person, roughly 744,000 UZS at 12,000 UZS per dollar, and a duration of about five and a half hours. The meeting point is Registan Square, the monumental ensemble of three madrasas at the centre of Samarkand, and the activity returns to the same spot at the end. A minibus carries the group from the square to the place where the class is held, so no separate taxi arrangements are needed for the cooking itself. The focus is plov, the national rice dish of Uzbekistan, which is cooked in a large cast-iron kazan over a flame. Participants learn how ingredients are chosen, then follow the sequence that defines the dish: frying the meat and onions in oil, adding carrots, and layering in the rice so that it steams rather than boils. The food is the single main course rather than a multi-stop tasting, so the balance is firmly savoury; the finished plov is eaten together for lunch, with tea, water, wine or vodka included according to the listing. An English-speaking assistant accompanies the group and explains each stage. The listing does not publish fixed start times, so availability and departure times must be checked on the booking page, and bookings are accepted until about three hours before the start if places remain. Free cancellation is offered up to 48 hours before the start; later cancellations and no-shows are not refunded. The listing does not promise a vegetarian version of plov, which is traditionally made with meat, so dietary needs should be raised at the time of booking. Entrance fees to monuments, gratuities and any extra drinks are not part of the listed inclusions. Closed shoes and clothes that tolerate oil and smoke suit the kitchen setting, and arriving hungry makes sense because lunch is the finished dish itself.