Six nights · a food journey
Two nights each in Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Gangtok, eating in every town with a guide or cook from there. Our chef writes to each kitchen before you land, so what you cannot eat never reaches the table.
Photo: Krishnendu Biswas / Pexels
Day 1 · near Kurseong
On the way up the car pulls in at Margaret's Deck, a tea lounge built like a ship's deck above the Margaret's Hope garden; we phone ahead for a table at the rail. Order the garden's own tea and look down on its bushes. Darjeeling by about 16:30.
Photo: Claire Kelly / Unsplash
Day 2 · Darjeeling
Breakfast on the terrace at Keventer's, frying ham, bacon and sausages since 1911. Chowk Bazaar with a guide for hard chhurpi and hot sel roti. Then Nathmull's for first, second and autumn flush side by side in white cups, and thenthuk at Kunga.
Photo: Sanat Anghan / Pexels
Day 3 · Lopchu
A scone at Glenary's when it opens at 07:00, then down the Peshok road. Above Lopchu, a garden planted in the early 1860s at about 1,500 m (4,920 ft), the driver pours its tea from a flask with the bushes below. Lunch at Gompu's in Kalimpong.
Photo: Prasanta Kr Dutta / Unsplash
Day 4 · Kalimpong
At 07:30, ahead of the crowd: hard and soft chhurpi, phing, butter, kinema, dried dalle and, in October and November, the season's new gundruk. Later a small cheesemaker cuts a young wheel, arranged a week ahead because supply comes and goes.
Photo: Laker
Day 5 · Gangtok
Lunch at Nimtho: rice, dal, a vegetable curry, gundruk and a spoon of dalle achar that sets the pace for the table. In the evening the Nor-Khill's Dragon Bar serves tongba, hot water over fermented millet, drawn up through a bamboo straw.
Photo: Simanta Saha
Day 6 · Lal Bazaar
A Sikkimese home cook shops the way a household does, then lunch is made with you rather than for you: gundruk soup, phagshapa of pork with radish and dried chilli, a sinki achar, dalle pounded with tomato. Vegetarians get kinema curry and iskus, agreed a month ahead.
Photo: Arindam Chowdhury
Choosing dates
A Sunday start puts Kalimpong's Wednesday Haat on your fourth morning and keeps Thursday market closures off your shopping days. Go October to December or March to May. From ₹1,25,000 per person, twin share. Leave room in a checked bag: pickle in oil cannot go in the cabin.
Photo: Sahil Pandita / Unsplash