The first thing that strikes most visitors from Nepal’s overbearing southern neighbour is how clean and quiet most parts of Kathmandu are. There’s no escaping the chaos and the pollution, but people don’t honk or litter. Longtime residents largely credit Kathmandu’s young mayor Balendra Shah for the city’s spruced-up look. The rapper and structural engineer, who contested as an independent and leveraged his popularity on social media, was the unlikely winner of the last mayoral elections of 2022.
The change is not only evident on the ground, literally, but also in the city’s food and hospitality scene. Many young Nepalese are now returning home after graduating or working abroad. Tusa, co-founded by former Noma intern Parashuram Pathak, serves progressive Nepalese cuisine in the historic city of Bhaktapur, about 40 minutes from Kathmandu. Luxury hotel chains, especially from India, are readying new launches, including the resurrection of the iconic Hotel Annapurna; the city is now dotted with Instagram and TikTok-friendly cafes and roasteries; and some of its bars regularly feature on Asia’s 50 Best Bars list. The most recent entrant into Kathmandu’s vibrant night scene is Yangdup Lama, whose The Old House also marks the first international debut of an Indian bar operator.
Reconnecting with his roots
Lama is India’s most celebrated bartender and bar entrepreneur. He set up India’s first bartending school in the early aughts; is the first Indian to feature on global bartender lists; and Sidecar, which he co-runs in Delhi with his business partner Minakshi Singh, is frequently recognised as among the world’s best. The 54-year-old was born in Kurseong but is of Nepalese descent, and he began his journey as a fresh-faced hotel management graduate at Hotel Annapurna in Kathmandu in the early 1990s.
Lama says he has emotional ties to Nepal and, from a cultural perspective, Kathmandu made sense for the duo’s first international bar. “Kathmandu has always had its share of well-heeled, adventurous travellers. Beyond that, many of my contemporaries, some of them younger than I am, have returned from abroad and are doing innovative things. So, we reasoned that while it might be a small market, the signs were all positive,” says Lama.
Lama and Singh’s bars – besides Sidecar, they also helm Cocktails and Dreams Speakeasy and The Brook, in Gurgaon – have followed a simple and successful template of being familiar neighbourhood spaces, ‘Monday-Tuesday’ bars where you can land up after work, or have a quiet conversation. The Old House, located on the upscale, colonial-era avenue of Durbar Marg, doesn’t stray too far from the concept.
Checking into The Old House
The Old House leans heavily on the architecture of the Newars, the traditional inhabitants of the Kathmandu Valley. With a courtyard that welcomes guests, a generously proportioned skylight, intricate woodwork, and textured brick and stucco walls, one gets the feeling of entering the grand home of an especially welcoming Newari elite. The kitchen sends out generous helpings of meats, some of which are grilled sekuwa-style — over charcoal — and momos, and the bar menu showcases a breadth of ingredients from the subtropical lowlands of the Terai to the subalpine heights of the high Himalaya with measured flair.
The easy-drinking Mustang Melody combines gin with seabuckthorn, honey and lime, while the Meaningful Marpha, a nod to Nepal’s apple capital, adeptly blends whisky, apple jam, and black pepper bitters. Lama is most proud, though, of the Dhaka Topi, named after the patterned cap worn across Nepal, traditionally made from handwoven Dhaka fabric. To Lama, the cocktail – whisky, bay leaf and lime – speaks of Nepali pride. “I’d been trying to get it right for a while now. With bourbon, with scotch, but ultimately what worked is a smooth blended scotch and bay leaf purée,” says Lama. The bar and floor staff are all local, trained in the Sidecar style but encouraged to make it their own.
Beyond the Valley
While Lama and Singh are weighing offers to set up bars in cities such as Jaipur and Hyderabad, they also have India’s other neighbours in their sights. “Sri Lanka would be lovely. There is a massive, high-quality tourism catchment there,” says Singh. With Indian mixology on the rise – five Indian bars figure in this year’s Asia’s 50 Best – they might also have a concomitant agenda: to spotlight some uniquely Indian ingredients. Singh believes that some parts of the world are now ready for big flavours. “I remember this event in Italy where our cilantro-based cocktail got people excited. Some bars in Singapore are already doing Indian-forward cocktails, so we’re not starting from scratch anymore,” says Singh. “So yes, an Indian bar in Sri Lanka or maybe Southeast Asia sounds excellent – I mean, why not?”