at YAKUZA

Rolls and shawarma have been sharing menu space for years; at Yakuza, the two are folded into one. The result is a clean, takeaway form with a faintly Japanese register. Inside, it keeps to a familiar grammar: rice, cream cheese, cucumber, with salmon or eel, finished with sauces and crisp fried onions. The shape may surprise, the flavour does not — a crossover that resolves with unusual ease. Each is priced at 3,990 KZT.

at Selfie

At Selfie, a Kazakh classic is reworked through a Mexican lens: baursaks made with cornmeal and served with guacamole — less a novelty than a quiet act of culinary exchange. In practice, the pairing settles with surprising ease: the gentle sweetness of the dough meets the creamy weight of avocado, forming a combination that feels considered rather than contrived. Priced at 4,150 KZT.

at Qazaq Gourmet

Across Artyom Kantsev’s menu, contrast is the organising principle — camel mortadella set against tradition, violet manty filled with sevruga and saffron. Dessert follows the same line. The ice cream, made from tuzdyk — the savoury sauce that accompanies beshbarmak — is served with a slice of baursak and finished with sturgeon caviar. Salted, creamy, layered in texture — and, remarkably, seamless. It closes a meal without resorting to sweetness, leaving instead a lingering curiosity: the kind of dish that invites a second order as much as a second thought. Priced at 5,400 KZT.

at The Kitchen

At The Kitchen, the döner is reworked with a restaurant’s instinct for detail: horse meat cooked over charcoal, chimichurri, cheddar sharpened with jalapeño, pickled cucumber, red onion. It remains, in essence, a thing to eat with your hands — though the experience has been lifted into more elevated territory. Priced at 4,250 KZT.

at Ryba Pila

A reimagined piece of street food from the team behind Ryba Pila. In place of the usual sausage, a soft bun holds a tender octopus tentacle, lightly caramelised at the edges; in place of mayonnaise, a gentler sauce designed to draw out the sweetness of the seafood rather than mask it. On the side, fries — as they should be. Priced at 16,800 KZT.

Images: restaurant websites and social media; Yandex Maps