Mandua Roti
Finger millet from the water mill, slapped onto the iron tawa. Nutty, dense, faintly sweet.
Rasoi · organic, chulha-cooked
Organic Kumaoni food, cooked on a chulha.
The kitchen
Our farm-to-table kitchen
February means mustard greens and radish; July, beans and far too much spinach; October, everything at once. The gas ring is there — nobody uses it. Everything comes off the chulha, fed with fallen pine and oak.
- The terracesVegetables and the mandua for the mill.
- The shedSeven litres a day — milk, curd, ghee.
- The neighbour’s beesTen wall hives, two houses down.
- The water millBelow the village, still turning.
The kitchen door does not close. Lift the lid on the pot — by the second day the tongs will be in your hand.
The dishes
Traditional Kumaoni dishes
Not the hill-station restaurant version — what is cooked in houses on this ridge, most days.
Bhatt ki Churkani
Black soybean roasted, ground and simmered two hours with jakhya and garlic. The dish people write about.
Aloo ke Gutke
Small waxy hill potatoes tossed in mustard oil, red chilli and coriander seed.
Jhangora Kheer
Barnyard millet cooked down in our own milk with jaggery. Sundays and birthdays.
Fresh Milk
From our own two cows, milked at 5.30. Be in the shed at dawn to learn how.
Terrace Sabzi
Whatever was standing in soil that morning — spinach, radish, beans, pumpkin.
Mountain Honey
From A neighbour’s wall hives two doors down. Pale after the rhododendron bloom.
Kalewa
Roti, ghee, seasonal pickle and tea, carried to whichever terrace has the sun.
The day, from the kitchen
Meal times at the homestay
The chulha is lit at 5.15 and banked at nine. In ten years it has gone fully cold twice.
- 05:15
The kettle, then the cows
The first tea is made with milk that was in a cow eleven minutes earlier.
- 08:30
Kalewa
Roti off the tawa, ghee, malta pickle in winter — out on the sunny terrace.
- 13:00
The long lunch
Dal, rice, a vegetable, roti, fresh chutney. Second helpings are assumed.
- 19:00
One table
Everyone eats together. The eldest of the house is served first — the one formality here.
Dietary
Dietary requirements
Tell us at booking, not on arrival — the nearest shop is fifty-five kilometres away.
Straightforward
- Vegetarian — the default
- Gluten-free — mandua & jhangora
- Jain, or no onion & garlic
- Mild for children, always
With notice
- Vegan — hard, but our cook manages
- Low-salt, low-oil
- Diabetic-friendly, no jaggery
- Nut-free; egg on request
Not possible
- Meat or fish — never cooked here
- Alcohol — bring your own
- A separate menu per guest
- Room service
Dinner is at seven. There is a place at the table — tell us when you are coming and about any diet.