Baku eats where Persia, Turkey and the Caucasus overlap: saffron-crowned plov, lamb slow-baked in clay pots, herb plates the size of bouquets and endless armudu glasses of tea. Three days of markets, kebab pits and çayxana rituals.
Baku's main covered produce market on Samad Vurgun, open roughly 08:00–19:00 daily. Pyramids of Göyçay pomegranates, barrels of Astara feijoa, sheep's-milk motal cheese in skins, and saffron sold by the gram. Vendors expect haggling on nuts and dried fruit.
A long-running home-style kitchen off the pedestrian Torgovaya where the kitchen women hand-pleat düşbərə — thumbnail-sized lamb dumplings, roughly 8-10 to a spoon — served in broth with vinegar and dried mint. Also does qutab, thin herb-and-cheese griddle breads.
Away from the tourist waterfront, Yasamal's neighbourhood tea houses serve tea in pear-shaped armudu glasses with a samovar refill, plus jams of white cherry, walnut and quince eaten by the spoonful rather than stirred in. Backgammon and domino games run all afternoon.
The old Sovetski quarter's surviving lanes still hold clay tandir ovens where bakers slap dough onto the wall and peel off blistered çörək within minutes. Bread comes out from mid-afternoon; also look for şirin kökə, a sweet flat bun made with butter and sugar.
The reference kitchen for Azerbaijani plov: rice steamed under a qazmaq crust of dough or yoghurt, tinted with saffron and served with separate topping pots — lamb with chestnut and dried fruit, or fish and herbs. Book ahead for weekends; open 12:00 to midnight.
A small dining room dedicated to Azerbaijan's stuffed-things canon: grape-leaf yarpaq dolması, three-vegetable badımcan dolması of aubergine, pepper and tomato, and lamb-and-quince dolma. Everything arrives with garlicky yoghurt to spoon over.
Part museum, part kitchen — antique copper and carpet-loom pieces line the walls while the grill turns out lülə kebab and tikə kebab over Absheron charcoal, with sac ici, a lamb-and-vegetable sizzle served on its own iron plate. Live tar and kamancha most evenings.
The Caspian's own fish traditions survive along the seaside boulevard: kutum baked with walnut and pomegranate paste, and nərgə (sturgeon) grilled on skewers with narsharab, the thick sour pomegranate molasses that is Azerbaijan's answer to soy sauce.
Morning qutab griddles line the lanes off Fountains Square: paper-thin half-moons filled with lamb and pomegranate seeds, pumpkin, or a fistful of spring greens, cooked on a domed sac and brushed with butter. Two or three make a breakfast.
A homestyle kitchen doing the dishes Azerbaijani grandmothers defend: dovğa, a warm yoghurt soup thick with chickpeas, rice and coriander, drunk hot in winter and cold in summer, plus xəşil, a buttery wheat porridge with saffron that predates most of the city.
Azerbaijan has been making wine since antiquity and the Ganja and Shamakhi regions are back in production — look for Madrasa and Bayan Shira grapes, plus the sweet pomegranate wines that are entirely their own category. Flights of four pours are standard.
Azerbaijani pakhlava is diamond-cut, walnut-heavy and less syrup-soaked than the Turkish version, with a saffron-stained top. Alongside it sit şəkərbura, crescent pastries of ground almond and cardamom crimped by hand — both central to the Novruz table.