One long table. One chef. The menu is short, the evenings long, and the bread comes out warm enough to fold.
From the orchard at Khamand, picked the morning of. Walnuts cracked at the table.
The trout from the Beas, the broth from its bones. Thyme from the kitchen window.
Eight hours in the wood oven. Carrots, parsnips, kohlrabi. A spoon will do.
Three cheeses from the dairy at Naggar. Quince paste from last autumn.
The honey from a beekeeper in Manaltu. Cardamom from the chef's mother's garden.
— a vegetarian course is offered at every step. Tell us when you book.
Twelve seats. A linen runner. Candles that lean a little after the second course. We do not split tables for two; you sit beside whoever else has come up that night.
Most evenings begin with someone offering their bread to someone else. By the end most guests know each other's names, and a few have made plans for tomorrow's walk. This is the design intent. If you'd prefer a private table, ask.
Five courses, written that morning on the slate by the door. We don't offer choices on the menu — we offer the menu, and a vegetarian variation at every step. Allergies and aversions: let us know when you book and we'll work around them.
The menu changes nightly. Apples in October. Trout in March. Kohlrabi when the dairy delivers; pumpkin when the farmer at Manaltu has too many. If you're staying a week, you'll never eat the same thing twice.
The starter is twenty-six years old and travels with the chef. The bread is baked twice a day, in a small wood oven by the kitchen door. There is butter from the dairy, and salt from the Rann, and that is mostly the point.
If we run out, we run out. The next batch comes around seventeen-hundred hours.
Trained in Bombay, briefly in Lyon, mostly in her grandmother's kitchen in Mandi. She believes the menu writes itself if you walk the orchard before sunrise. On Tuesdays she doesn't cook; on Tuesdays she is in the forest.
Indian Reserve, from Nashik. Black plum, dry tannin, drinks well into the third course. We pour it with the lamb.
Whisky, lemon, honey from Manaltu, a clove or two. Made by the bar at half-past eight, and again whenever asked. Best by the fire.
Strong black tea, full-fat milk, a knot of ginger, two cloves, half a stick of cinnamon. Brought to the table in a brass pot.
Most of what arrives in the kitchen comes from inside the valley. Some of it comes from inside the front gate.
Twelve seats nightly. Reservations close at noon the day of. Rooms at the house include supper if you ask when you book.