It was in a narrow, unassuming eatery in Patan, somewhere between the pottery square and the temples, that I first properly ate a Thakali thali. I hadn’t gone looking for it, someone local had insisted, the way locals do—and what showed up was a full platter of rice, dal, greens, pickles and meat that kept refilling itself before I could even ask. I remember thinking I’d stumbled onto something extraordinary. Someone at the table mentioned ‘Jimbu Thakali’ in passing, saying it was worth seeking out if I had the time. I didn’t. By the time the name properly registered in my mind, I’d already left Kathmandu, and the restaurant remained an unfinished business, one of those places you tell yourself you’ll catch next trip. So when Jimbu Thakali announced its first international outpost in Gurugram, it felt like a second chance I hadn’t asked for but I would never miss.
Buckwheat, Broth, And A Slow Build
We started slow, with the Kanchyamba, i.e. homemade buckwheat fries, crisp and faintly nutty, arriving alongside a plate of Mustang Aloo, potatoes shallow-fried with jimbu. Buckwheat runs through almost everything on this menu, and serves as a reminder that it was the staple carb in Mustang long before rice ever reached the hills.
Next came the momos—chicken and mutton both, plumper and a bit more spiced than the versions Delhi has grown used to. Sherchan had explained this gap to me earlier that most momos in the city take their cue from the Northeast, lighter on masala, while the Kathmandu original leans in harder on spice.
A second wave of appetisers followed, a plate of mutton sukuti, dehydrated and pan-tossed with timur, before the main course arrived—the Jimbu Thakali thali, a plate crowded with fragrant rice, seasonal saag, crisp jimbu aloo, a tangy radish pickle, and fermented gundruk sandheko sitting alongside a bowl of black lentil dal that tasted unlike any dal I’ve had in Delhi.
That flavour comes down to jimbu itself, the dried, high-altitude herb—grown at nearly 2,600 metres, that gives the restaurant its name. “We use that a lot,” Sherchan said, though its presence in the dal was anything but subtle. The meal wound down with a Juju Dhau panna cotta, Nepal’s classic Newari yoghurt reworked into something considerably more delicate and sweet, which you’re meant to linger over rather than rush through.
The One Dish Worth The Drive
If one dish justified the trip to the 65th Avenue, it was this. The mutton jhol momo arrived swimming in a thin, fiery broth that had clearly been simmered long enough to draw every bit of flavour from the bones. The dumplings themselves were soft without falling apart, the mutton filling juicy and well-seasoned, holding its own against the jhol. Each spoonful of broth carried that distinct tang and warmth that Nepali jhol momo is known for, nothing like the ketchup-adjacent chutney momos usually come with in Delhi. This is the dish I’d surely come back for.
No Bar Yet, But No Complaints
The bar isn’t fully operational yet; the restaurant is still waiting on its liquor licence, expected in about a month. So I went with the Mickey Mouse, a nostalgic, faintly ridiculous mocktail of chilled cola, and a scoop of vanilla ice cream. It’s not a sophisticated drink by any measure, but it did the job of cooling things down between the spice of the jhol momo and the richness of the thali.
A Newari Welcome
Walk into Jimbu Thakali at M3M 65th Avenue, and the first thing that stops you is the woodwork. It’s intricate, latticed, unmistakably Newari, as you’d expect to find carved into a window frame in Patan rather than a mall in 65th Avenue.
The Tiki Jhya panelling above the bar is a direct nod to Kathmandu Valley’s Durbar Square, while the far end of the room shifts register entirely, borrowing from the flatter, sturdier houses of Mustang. Turquoise doors and window frames punctuate the earthy brickwork throughout; the bricks, I’m told, are Mapa Itta, laid the traditional way.
Founder Vivek Man Sherchan didn’t bring in an outside designer for any of it. “It was all my idea. Never hired an interior guy,” he told me, crediting only the architecture firm Karu and engineer Birendra Pradhananga for helping translate his vision into a working 2,500 sq ft, 80-seater. The result doesn’t feel like a themed restaurant so much as someone’s carefully assembled memory of home. As Sherchan put it, the goal, even as a Thakali restaurant, was to represent Nepal as a whole, to layer in “a little bit of everything” so the space feels welcoming rather than narrowly regional.
