Menu

2 rsapkhoor, 6 mamtu, a bowl of tras balay and a plate of prapu, with two glasses of pharring chhoo, green and red chilli sauce and apricot oil.

Serves 2

Everything the kitchen is known for, on one table. The easiest way to eat here if you have never tried Balti food before.

Marzan, prapu and starmay kisir, with two glasses of pharring chhoo, green chilli sauce, moskot sauce and apricot oil.

Serves 2

Entirely vegetarian, and the gentlest introduction to the cuisine: buckwheat, wheat and apricot oil, the three things this valley is built on.

10 traditional dumplings with chicken and local herb fillings.

Folded by hand and steamed in a tiered pot. The dish guests mention more than any other, and the reason many of them come.

Plate of cooked buckwheat served with local butter and apricot oil.

The name is the recipe: mar means oil, zan means the buckwheat dough. Winter food, eaten before a long day outdoors.

Plate of cubes of cooked wheat served with moskot sauce.

Moskot is walnut ground to a paste with mint and mountain herbs. Nothing in it comes from outside the valley.

3 barley sprout breads with apricot oil, walnut oil and milk.

Bowl of handmade noodles in soup with local herbs, with chicken or beef.

chicken / beef

The noodles are rolled and cut by hand the same morning. The green comes from herbs that grow above the village, not from a jar.

Traditional barley soup with chicken and peas.

Plate of chicken curry made with moscot, a nut paste, in Balti style.

Rich and mild rather than hot. Guests who arrive expecting Punjabi heat are always surprised by this one.

Beef broth cooked with mountain herbs.

1 kg

Mutton broth cooked with mountain herbs.

1 kg

Plate of local fried fish or rainbow trout, served with homemade sauce.

niya / trout

Plate of chicken and vegetable pulao cooked in a pressure cooker, served with raita.

Buckwheat pancakes served with herbal sauce.

Soft cooked barley in local tea with apricot and walnut oil.

Apricot, cooked slowly in the local style.

6 baked biscuits made with traditional eggs and milk.

2 traditional egg pancakes served with a paste of honey and milk cream.

Cake made with baked barley, topped with local butter.

Glass of apricot juice made with dried natural apricots.

Skardu is known for its apricots. This is them, and nothing else.

Cup of salted pink tea made with local butter, salt and milk.

Payu means salt, cha means tea. Salted, buttered and pink. The everyday drink of the mountains, and not what most visitors expect.

Cup of tea made with wild tumburu.