Naar

If anyone can inspire diners to venture outside their comfort zones, it’s Prateek Sadhu. In 2016, with stints at Noma, Alinea, and the French Laundry under his belt, the trailblazing chef introduced fine-dining Indian tasting menus to Mumbai with his landmark restaurant Masque; after soaring to the pinnacle of the culinary landscape, he traded in city life for heights of another sort. Last November, the Kashmiri chef returned to the Himalayas, opening Naar at the Amaya boutique hotel in a quiet hamlet in Himachal Pradesh. While Sadhu was always more at home in the mountains than in the city, the looming question was: will diners make the trek to join him there to experience his bold vision for Himalayan cuisine? Sadhu acknowledges that there is no blueprint in India for a destination restaurant of this scale—which is precisely what makes it so thrilling. “I could have easily done it in Bombay or Delhi. But I'm building more than just a restaurant. I’m telling the stories of the Himalayas,” he says. Judging by the steady flow of traffic snaking up winding mountain roads to reach Naar’s pine-clad dining room, Sadhu is on to something. Inside, he guides 16 diners at a time on a tantalizing tour of the region through its flavors: Himachali yak cheese, juniper-smoked lamb with Kashmiri mushqbudji rice, Ladakhi buckwheat pasta, Naga bamboo shoot pickles, galgal lemons from Uttarakhand. “Naar means fire in Kashmiri,” he says. “For me, it’s not the fire that we cook on, it is the fire within ourselves, that drove me to here.” Bookings open 30 days in advance; if Amaya’s 15 rooms, set in stone cottages built by celebrated Mumbai architect Bijoy Jain, are booked, Naar’s reservation team can make suggestions for hotels and homestays in the area.

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