Pomegranate, walnuts, saffron, lamb, vine leaves and rice—the first few things on my plate at The Caspian Table could have easily belonged to several parts of Asia. But the flavours told us a different story. Azerbaijan and Georgia may not be among the first cuisines that come to mind when eating out in Delhi, but their food carries traces of the centuries of trade, travel and cultural exchange that connected the Caucasus, Persia and Central Asia. The Caspian Sea was one of those great conduits, carrying not just silk and other goods but also ingredients, techniques and ideas about food. Last week, I found myself following some of those connections at K3, JW Marriott.
The hotel’s limited-period dining experience, The Caspian Table, brought the cuisines of Azerbaijan and Georgia together in one buffet, with Chef Asif Hidayetov, All-Day Restaurant CDC, and Chef Latif Meybullayev, CDP, both from JW Marriott Absheron Baku, walking me through the dishes. It was Hidayetov and Meybullayev’s first time cooking in India, and their brief was not to reinvent the food for a new audience. They stayed with traditional Azerbaijani recipes and techniques, while keeping in mind that Indian diners are already comfortable with spices and bold flavours. The result was a spread that felt unfamiliar in places, but rarely difficult to understand.
Starting With The Appetisers
The buffet was laid out in traditional tagine pots. A tagine is a traditional North African cooking vessel with a shallow base and a tall, conical lid, designed for slow-cooking stews and tenderising meat in its own juices. Here, the vessels made for an interesting setting for dishes from much further east, and my first stop was actually at the appetisers.
An eggplant roll with pomegranate and walnuts was an immediate lesson in how much can happen with a few ingredients. The eggplant was soft and earthy, the pomegranate brought acidity, and the walnuts added their characteristic crunch. Next came Red Bean Pkhali, a Georgian preparation of blended red beans mixed with walnuts and aromatic Georgian spices.
The appetisers offered an early sense of what would become a recurring theme through the meal: ingredients doing much of the work. Rather than relying on heavy seasoning, the dishes drew their character from the contrast between earthy vegetables, tart fruit, nuts and herbs.
The Shah Plov And The Journey Of Rice
With that, the chefs introduced me to the star of the evening—Shah Plov, or Azerbaijan Royal Pilaf. Saffron rice cooked with lamb, chestnuts and dried fruits is then wrapped in lavash pastry and baked until the outside turns crisp. Plov, of course, is not confined to one country. Across the region, it appears in many forms: Uzbek plov, Afghan pulao, Persian polo, and pilaf traditions stretching into the Middle East and the Mediterranean.
Hidayetov and Meybullayev told me that freshness, simplicity and depth are some of the defining qualities they wanted to highlight in Azerbaijani cuisine. Saffron, herbs, dried fruits, nuts, pomegranate, lamb and vegetables all have an important role, while traditional cooking methods allow the ingredients to retain their natural character. Plov, kebabs, dolma and regional soups are among the preparations that show the diversity of the cuisine.
The Shah Plov made that philosophy easy to taste. The lamb was tender, the saffron fragrant without taking over, and the dried fruit brought little pockets of sweetness into the rice. The crisp lavash added another texture to an otherwise soft dish. It was not biryani, but the comparison was inevitable: this was its distant cousin, part of that much larger family of rice dishes that have travelled across Asia and changed along the way.
Lamb, Vine Leaves And Slow Cooking
From there, the chefs took me towards the lamb dishes. Bozartma, a traditional lamb stew slowly cooked with onion and fresh aromatic herbs, was simple in construction but deeply satisfying. The lamb was juicy and tender and was perfectly complemented by the light gravy. Azerbaijan’s generous use of lamb was becoming a theme, but so was the way the meat was treated: slow cooking, rather than a long list of spices, did much of the work.
The next stop was Yarpaq Dolma. Tender vine leaves are stuffed with seasoned minced lamb and rice and rolled into small parcels. They looked almost like little dumplings. The vine leaf gave the filling a gentle bite, while the lamb and rice remained soft inside. My mind kept reaching for comparisons—sushi, perhaps, or the filling of a dim sum—but neither captured it. There are dishes that become easier to understand when placed beside something familiar, and then there are dishes that are more interesting when they refuse the comparison.
The chefs had brought saffron, sumac, dried herbs and aromatic spice blends from Azerbaijan. Sumac provides a pleasant tanginess, while saffron is an ingredient Indian diners already know well. The difference, Hidayetov explained, is largely in how these ingredients are balanced and used.
Familiar Flavours, Different Traditions
That familiarity between the two cuisines came up repeatedly during our conversation. The chefs attributed it to centuries of cultural exchange, trade and movement. Both cuisines make room for slow cooking, aromatic spices, fresh herbs, grains, meat, dried fruits and nuts. There is also a shared instinct to balance richness with acidity and freshness.
So while an Azerbaijani dish may not taste like something from an Indian kitchen, there can be enough points of recognition to make the first bite feel closer to home. The chefs said this was particularly noticeable when Indian diners encountered ingredients such as saffron, pomegranate, nuts and aromatic herbs, which may be used differently but are hardly unfamiliar.
Georgia Brings Chicken And Cheese To The Table
The Georgian section shifted the emphasis from lamb to chicken. Chakhokhbili, a traditional Georgian chicken stew, is prepared with tomato, onion, herbs and spices. The tomato gave the dish a gentle acidity, while the herbs kept it bright.
Another preparation brought together baked mushrooms, tender chicken and melted sulguni cheese. The mushrooms added depth, the chicken was soft, and the warm sulguni added a salty, creamy richness. It was a reminder that Georgian food is not only about its much-discussed walnuts and herbs; cheese has a significant place here too.
The shift from Azerbaijani dishes to Georgian preparations also made the diversity of the spread more apparent. Although the two cuisines share ingredients and a broader regional history, they have developed their own combinations, textures and ways of building flavour.
Cooking Azerbaijani Food In India
Cooking in India had required some adjustments, though not dramatic ones. The chefs said they were impressed by the quality and variety of Indian produce, but noted that some vegetables and meats had slightly different textures and flavour profiles from those they use in Azerbaijan. They adjusted cooking times and seasoning accordingly, while finding that fresh Indian herbs and vegetables worked particularly well in their traditional preparations.
By this point, the meal had become quite a substantial affair, so the drinks arrived at an appropriate moment. They, too, nodded to the region’s history and ingredients. The Silk Road Spritz was a take on the traditional spritz with saffron and honey. The Azerbaijan Sunset was a fruitier combination of pomegranate juice, peach nectar, lemon juice and soda.
After the abundance of meat, the latter was particularly welcome: tart, light and refreshing enough to reset the palate. The chefs believe Azerbaijani cuisine has considerable potential in India for precisely this reason. Many of its flavours are already familiar to Indian diners, while its regional traditions, dishes and cooking techniques offer something new.
They suggested that greater exposure through food festivals, chef collaborations and restaurants could help Indian diners understand the diversity of Azerbaijan and its culinary heritage. For a cuisine that shares so many ingredients with food traditions Indians already know, the bigger opportunity may simply be to give diners more chances to encounter it on its own terms.
A Sweet Finish
By this point, was I full? Very. Did that stop me from having dessert? Absolutely not.
Gozinaki was the first one to catch my attention. Caramelised walnuts bound with honey and traditionally cut into delicate pieces, it immediately brought badam chikki to mind. Except this was richer, denser and, for anyone who likes walnuts, more indulgent.
I followed it with Sutlac, an Azerbaijan-style rice pudding. It is hard to eat a rice-and-milk dessert in this part of the world without thinking of kheer, but that was precisely the point: the similarities were there without the dishes being identical.
When Food Becomes A Cultural Connection
That recognition, in fact, has been one of the chefs’ most memorable parts of cooking for Indian diners. The chefs told me that they have watched guests taste Azerbaijani dishes and immediately identify flavours that remind them of their own cuisine. Those moments often lead to conversations about ingredients, family recipes and food traditions.
Their observation was simple: food does not have to be identical to feel familiar. Sometimes one shared flavour is enough to create a cultural connection. That seemed particularly evident throughout this meal, where pomegranate, saffron, rice, nuts and slow-cooked meat repeatedly triggered associations without ever becoming quite the same dishes.
That is perhaps what I took away from The Caspian Table. Azerbaijani and Georgian cuisines may not yet have the same visibility in India as Italian, Japanese or Thai food, but they do not need to be made familiar by forcing them into categories we already understand. Rice, spices and cooking techniques travelled. Ingredients were exchanged, adapted and made local. The plov on one table and the pulao on another are not isolated creations, but part of a much older culinary conversation across Asia.
We tend to discuss food today in terms of authenticity, ownership and where a dish truly belongs. But exchange came first. Long before cuisines were neatly divided by national borders, people were moving, trading, cooking and borrowing from one another. The Caspian Table made that history rather easier to understand, not through a history lesson, but through a delightful gastronomic experience.
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