Chef Jigmet Mingur Brings A Thoughtful Ladakhi Winter Menu To Delhi

The Qube at The Leela Palace New Delhi felt a little different this weekend—encouraging diners to pause and savour each course. For two consecutive evenings, February 27 and 28, the restaurant hosted Epicurean Tales from Ladakh, a winter pop-up by Chef Jigmet Mingur in collaboration with Gormei. Instead of going big on drama, it focused on something more intimate—memory, terrain, and ingredients carried from Ladakh.

Beyond Momo And Thukpa

“Julay,” Chef Jigmet greeted us warmly before settling into a conversation about why this menu exists in the first place. A former monk, he spent several years in Goa before eventually returning to Ladakh to reconnect with the food traditions he had grown up with. That journey also led him to a realisation: outside the region, Ladakhi cuisine is often simplified into a broad idea of Himalayan food.

“People only know momos and thukpa,” he said. “But there is so much more.”

Through collaborations and pop-ups across India, Chef Jigmet has been working to expand that understanding. The Delhi showcase—his first in the capital—was another step in that direction, bringing together flavours, ingredients and stories rooted in his homeland.

Understanding Ladakhi Cuisine

Ladakhi cuisine is deeply shaped by its geography. Situated at a high altitude with long, harsh winters and a short growing season, the region’s food traditions rely heavily on preservation and practicality. Fresh produce can be scarce during colder months, which is why dried vegetables, preserved cheese, barley flour and hardy greens form the backbone of everyday cooking.

Ingredients such as sea buckthorn berries, winter peas, wild caraway seeds and stinging nettle are commonly used, while barley remains one of the most important grains in the region. Cooking techniques often focus on slow simmering, drying and fermenting—methods that allow food to last through winter while retaining nourishment.

For this two-day showcase, many of these staples, including dried demo cheese, winter peas and sea buckthorn, were brought directly from Ladakh.

Winter On A Plate

The tasting menu reflected these traditions course by course. It began with Khunak, a salted green tea that gently shifts the palate. This was served with khambir, a charcoal-fired fermented bread paired with skotse (wild chives) butter—earthy and comforting in a way that felt perfectly suited to the cold climate it comes from.

Nyamthuk followed, a roasted barley soup made with dried demo cheese and black winter peas. Thick and deeply warming, it captured the kind of sustenance that Ladakhi cooking is built around.

One of the most interesting courses was the Labo and Demo Cheese Salad. Chef Jigmet is quick to admit that “salad” isn’t traditionally Ladakhi. “We don’t have something called salad back home,” he said with a laugh. But the dish draws from ingredients that are familiar in the region—local cheeses, dried apples, berries and capers—combined here with fresh greens and a sea buckthorn dressing to create a layered balance of creamy and tart flavours.

For the next course, non-vegetarians were served gyuma, a Ladakhi mutton sausage grilled over charcoal and accompanied by thaknyar, a local chilli blend. Vegetarians were offered mok mok—dumplings stuffed with morels and paired with apricot and walnut chutney—or Himalayan gucchi tsoshik, a rice dish cooked with morel mushrooms, winter root vegetables and Ladakhi spices.

Then came bakthuk or o’skyu—Ladakhi wholewheat pasta simmered in broth. Traditionally prepared during gatherings or special occasions, the dish carried subtle notes of turmeric, chilli and wild caraway seeds, allowing the broth to remain the central flavour.

Dessert told its own story. Ladakh does not traditionally have a sweet course in the way many cuisines do. Phaymer na phating is rooted in phe (roasted barley flour) and mar (butter), a simple mixture eaten more for nourishment than indulgence. For this menu, Chef Jigmet added jaggery and paired it with soaked halman apricots and sea buckthorn ice cream, creating a gentle balance between sweetness and tartness.

What lingered most was how closely the food reflected its landscape. Ladakhi cuisine is shaped by altitude, season and preservation techniques passed down through generations. Ingredients such as stinging nettle, winter peas and dried apricots are not novelties but everyday staples of life in the mountains. For two evenings in Delhi, those ingredients travelled far from home—bringing with them a quieter, more nuanced understanding of Ladakh’s culinary traditions.

Read more: Cheesecake Factory, The Iconic US Bakery, Makes India Debut In Bengaluru

Also read: World’s Only Indian Restaurant With Three Michelin Stars Comes To Mumbai