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GUIDES

A first-timer’s guide to ordering at a Nepalese restaurant

Khaja Khoj  ·  16 September 2026  ·  6 min read

Nepalese menus in Britain have a habit of hedging. Somewhere near the front there will be a page of familiar curry-house dishes, put there to reassure people who wandered in expecting them. Behind that page is the food the kitchen actually cares about, and it is usually in the sections you skipped.

This is how to order past the safe page.

Start with momo, but choose the right kind

Momo are dumplings, and they are the one Nepalese dish most people arrive already knowing. What most people do not know is how many ways they come, and that the version you order changes the meal completely.

  • Steamed — the standard. Thin wrapper, juicy filling, served with a sesame-tomato dipping sauce called achar.
  • Kothey — steamed and then pan-fried on one side, so you get a crisp base. Usually the best of the lot.
  • Jhol momo — steamed momo sitting in a bowl of warm, tangy, sesame-thickened broth. Order this if you see it; it is the version people get homesick for.
  • C-momo — fried momo tossed in a chilli sauce, closer to a bar snack. Good with beer, less interesting as food.
  • Fried — deep-fried, sturdy, fine but the least subtle.

Buff momo — buffalo — is the traditional filling and still the most common in Nepal. Where it is on a UK menu, it is usually the kitchen’s point of pride. Chicken and vegetable versions are everywhere.

If the menu has jhol momo and you order plain steamed, you have ordered the wrong thing.

Then order something Newari

The Newar people of the Kathmandu valley have the most developed food culture in Nepal, and their dishes are where a menu gets genuinely interesting. Look for:

  • Chatamari — a thin rice-flour crepe, often topped with minced meat and egg. Frequently described as Nepalese pizza, which undersells it.
  • Bara — a soft, savoury lentil patty, fried, sometimes with egg on top. Comfort food.
  • Choila — grilled meat, traditionally buffalo, tossed cold with mustard oil, chilli, ginger and timur. Smoky, sharp, chewy. One of the great dishes of the region.
  • Samay baji — a ceremonial platter built around beaten rice, with choila, black soybeans, egg, ginger and more. If you see it, order it and share it.

Sekuwa, if they have a grill

Sekuwa is marinated meat grilled over coals, served in pieces with beaten rice or raw onion. Pork, chicken, goat, lamb. It is straightforward, and the marinade — garlic, ginger, timur, mustard oil — is what distinguishes it from any other skewer you have eaten. A plate of sekuwa and a bowl of jhol momo is close to a perfect order for two people.

How to build an order

The mistake is ordering one main each, curry-house style. Nepalese food is built for sharing, and the menu is structured around small plates plus one anchoring meal.

  • Two people — one plate of momo, one Newari dish, one thali to share between you.
  • Four people — two kinds of momo, sekuwa, chatamari or bara, two thalis, one green vegetable.
  • On your own — a thali, and jhol momo if you are hungry.

Order the thali last, in the sense that it is the thing you eat around. If the tray is unfamiliar, we have broken down what each bowl is doing. It arrives as a full tray and anchors everything else.

What to drink

  • Chiya — milky spiced tea. Ordered at the end, or throughout, or both.
  • Tongba — fermented millet in a wooden pot, topped up with hot water and drunk through a straw. Warm, mild, slightly sour, and unlike anything else. A rarity on UK menus, so order it when it appears.
  • Raksi — a clear distilled spirit, served warm. Strong.
  • Beer — Nepalese labels like Gorkha or Nepal Ice turn up in the better-stocked places.

Three small things that help

  • Ask what is good today. Many kitchens cook a daily special that never makes the printed menu, and it is often the best thing available.
  • Say if you want it properly spiced. Kitchens here routinely dial down the heat for British customers. They will not if you ask.
  • Do not skip the achar. The pickle that arrives alongside is not decoration; it is part of the dish.

And one thing not to say

Much of the cooking is also seasonal: the dishes that appear around Dashain and Tihar are not on the menu the rest of the year. Nepalese food is not Indian food with a different flag on the door. The two share a subcontinent, some spices and the thali format, and then diverge sharply: less cream, fewer slow-cooked gravies, far more fermentation, and two seasonings — timur and jimbu — that barely appear in Indian cooking at all. The Himalayan and Tibetan influence is doing as much work as the Indian one.

Order as though it is its own cuisine, because it is.

Header photo: Raunak Maskay, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Find a Nepalese restaurant near you

Khaja Khoj lists Nepalese-owned restaurants, grocers and services across the UK. Search by town and see what is close.

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