Gakku

The Verdict

Gakku is the best modern Kazakh restaurant in Almaty and, by most critics' reading, in the country. It sits in the Bostandyk district away from the hotel and Italian corridors, in a restored former-cinema building with an open courtyard. The restaurant's stated mission is to present Kazakh and broader Central Asian cooking as a restaurant cuisine in the full sense — plated, paced, wine-pairable — rather than as a heritage-and-hospitality exercise.

The menu is organised around the nomadic larder: horse (the cured kazy sausage and the fresh horsemeat pilaf), lamb (as beshbarmak, as plov, as grilled skewers), fermented milk (kumis, shubat, ayran), and the grains and fats that defined the steppe kitchen. The plating is modern without being self-consciously so — there is no foam, no tweezed garnish — and the cooking respects the ingredient's intrinsic character.

The wine and tincture programme is a genuine point of difference. The house-made infusions — seabuckthorn, rosehip, apple — are served alongside a short Georgian-and-Armenian red list and a handful of Central European whites that work surprisingly well with the rich and fatty Kazakh dishes. A full dinner lands around ₸22,000 per person.

Why it works for Team Dinner

For a team dinner in Almaty — typically a visiting consulting team, a project kickoff, or a diaspora family gathering — Gakku is the right answer because the cuisine is the city's most honest. Nobody leaves Gakku without having eaten the food Kazakhstan is actually about. The shared beshbarmak platter is the ceremonial centre of the meal and the right instrument for building group feeling.

Also in Almaty

For diners who have experienced Gakku, the natural companion evenings are Vista, Parmigiano Ristorante, Bellagio — each on a different register of the city's dining culture. See the full Almaty directory for our complete occasion-ranked list, and the Team Dinner occasion page for comparable tables in other cities.