Eat Newari food

Newari food is the cooking of the Newar people, the valley's original city-builders, and it is unlike anything else in Nepal. Start with bara, a savoury lentil pancake, and chatamari, a thin rice-flour crepe topped with egg or minced meat.

For a fuller meal, order samay baji, a festival platter of beaten rice with spiced meat, black soybeans, boiled egg, ginger and pickles. Choila, spiced grilled buffalo meat, comes with most things. In winter, look for yomari, a sweet steamed dumpling filled with molasses, eaten at the Yomari Punhi festival in December.

The best Newari food is in the old towns. The lanes of Patan, Bhaktapur and Kirtipur are full of small, family-run eateries, often with low seats and no sign in English. Kirtipur, on a hill south-west of the city, has restaurants with views across the valley.

Food festivals and Newari food nights also come up through the year, and the listings below show what is on.

A Newari meal is built around beaten rice, called baji, with many small dishes around it: meats, lentils, greens, potatoes in spices and sharp pickles. You eat a little of everything together, and the plates keep coming.

Many dishes are tied to festivals and family feasts, so the menu changes with the season. Ask what is fresh that day, and order one or two things you have never heard of.