Kazan is the place to eat Tatar food, the only major Russian city where you can do it well. The cuisine sits between Russian, Central Asian, and Middle Eastern — slow-cooked horse meat, dough-pocket echpochmak triangles filled with potato and meat, gubadiya layered rice and meat pies, sour Tatar dumplings, and chak-chak, the deep-fried honey-soaked pastries that no Tatar wedding lacks. The Old Tatar Quarter is the obvious place for it.
Beyond Tatar food, the city centre has Russian, Caucasian, Italian, Japanese, and Pan-Asian options at international-city standard. Tea is a national obsession — drunk strong from a samovar with sugar and honey. Alcohol is freely available in restaurants outside the actively Muslim establishments; the local Kazan brand of brandy is worth a try.