This Chandigarh couple has eaten at Naar over 30 times in 32 months

Before chef Prateek Sadhu had a restaurant in the Himalayas, he had a standing invitation for mooli and broccoli parathas in Chandigarh.

Dr Anshumaan Kapoor, a urologist who runs a hospital in the city with wife Anupama, is part of a gang of foodies scattered across the world. “We are a group of nine guys from all over the world, out of which seven are urologists. And we travel the world for food. We go into the place, do the Michelin stars, and we’re back.” Itineraries for spots like Buenos Aires, Lisbon, Macau, and Hong Kong are typically four days long and include eight meals. So, when Kapoor read that the chef was coming for a pop-up at Amaya in Kasauli via Chandigarh, he slid into his DMs: “If you’re coming to Chandigarh, why don’t you come say hello?” Then he offered him a choice: “Would you like to go for a cup of coffee outside? Or do you want parathas at home?”

“Prateek being Prateek, he said, why not parathas at home?” recalls Kapoor over coffee at the Nappa Dori cafe in Chandigarh. “And he walks into my house wearing a pheran. And I’m wearing a pheran too.” Kapoor didn’t know Sadhu was Kashmiri at the time. He had taught surgery in Srinagar and was gifted the robe by his patients. “So,” he says, “we were compatible.” The parathas came out in relays: gobhi, aloo, mooli, even broccoli, with dahi, butter and—a Kapoor family tradition—malai.

The paratha meal at the Kapoors was about a year before Naar opened, before the idea of it even existed. A few months later, Sadhu messaged to say he was starting a restaurant in Darwa village near Kasauli, about eight minutes from the Kapoors’ farmhouse, where the couple had set up a holiday home precisely to get away from everything. In 2023, they watched Naar get built: the restaurant area taking shape, the fire kilns going in, the terrible monsoon that struck Himachal mid-construction. Kapoor (“me being local there now”) helped the team find their first houses, including, famously, an old jailhouse in Kothar Valley, in front of a Naag Devta temple, arranged through the valley’s erstwhile ‘king’. (That house later caught fire, thanks to a forgotten electric blanket, on the very day Kapoor, acting on his doctor’s instinct that something was wrong, had been randomly calling Sadhu.) In the early days of building Naar, when the team was working constantly, he would carry food over to them.

So, it follows that the first meal ever cooked at Naar was for Anupama. Her birthday falls on October 7; the restaurant opened in November. The kitchen did a trial run for seven or eight of them—Anupama, Anshumaan, their daughter Khushi, a niece, and her friends—and it was cooked by the opening team. On Naar’s opening night, Kapoor tasted their now-iconic dish of smoked trout served on khambir, or Ladakhi bread for the first time. It has been his favourite course ever since, and, thankfully, one that’s been constant on Naar’s menu. He carried a 30-year-old bottle of port from Lisbon as a gift for Sadhu. “Everybody had it.” And, he notes with a chuckle, “Yeah, I paid one rupee for that meal.” He’s paid full price for all their meals since.

For most guests, a meal at Naar is an indulgence that needs plenty of planning. Naar’s multicourse tasting menu costs ₹6,900 not inclusive of taxes and a voluntary service charge. The cocktail pairing is ₹5,000, their non-alcoholic beverage pairing is Rs. 3,500, and the wine pairing is ₹6,500.

Having a holiday home nearby makes Naar way more accessible for the Kapoors. Most diners drive to Darwa in Kasauli from Chandigarh, and spend the night in the village, staying at The Woodside Villas where rooms range from ₹4,000 to upwards of ₹20,000+ per night depending on the specific villa size (2 to 8 bedrooms) or Amaya (a luxury ryokan-style resort in Himachal Pradesh) where rooms range from ₹35,000 per night for standard rooms, to ₹1.5 lakh per night for premium villas.

Kapoor has lost count of how many times he’s eaten at Naar. So, we ask Akshay Tripathi, co-founder and partner at Naar, and he says the Kapoors have been there at least 30 times in the 32 months since the restaurant opened.

For most diners, Naar is a destination dining spot. What triggers a meal at Naar for you, seeing as it’s so accessible?

Anshumaan: Any time we have friends or relatives visiting, we take them there. Sometimes we’re there once every two or three months; at other times, it’s been twice in a month. My friends are always jealous, because pop-ups are going on right next to us. I’ve literally stopped eating out in Chandigarh. These guys in the UK and US send me pictures of the chefs they’re meeting, and I send them photographs of Naar.

Anupama: Khushi is a trigger too. Every time she’s home, we go to Naar. My niece likes to go there too. One time, my friends came over and wanted to go to Naar, but we couldn’t get a booking the usual way, so I rang Aashina [Kaul, Sadhu’s wife, who handles marketing and communications at Naar] and got a booking.

What’s your Naar ritual?

Anupama: If we are going for lunch, we will not have breakfast, or we’ll have a very light meal—just fruit—because we start our lunch at about 12:30 pm, and there are 15 or 16 courses to enjoy. The good part is that Prateek’s course size has remained the same [over the years, across the meal]. When we ate at Humble Chicken in the UK, the portions got bigger as the courses progressed, and we couldn’t put away so much food. At Naar, we can taste so many more dishes.

Anshumaan: We’ve shifted to having lunch primarily because Dad is alone at home and doesn’t always join us. He has told Prateek, “I can’t do many courses,” so Prateek just takes him to the salon, where he has his starters and comes back home. Consider this: Naar has a 16-course meal, with phenomenal food, and India still finds it expensive. Abroad, you’ll maybe only get a three-course meal for that much. Here, everything has been made with so much thought and effort.

What is your favourite course?

Anshumaan: The Dirty Toast. That’s been a constant on his menu, ever phenomenal. Every restaurant has something constant; that’s his. And there’s the rice dish in which you mix up all the elements. But really, every visit is a new experience for us, some personalised, some otherwise.

Anupama: And we always go for [every] seasonal variation on the menu.

Anshumaan: Yes, that’s what keeps us going back.

You’ve watched this restaurant since before day one. How has it changed?

Anupama: Because I oversee our hospital’s administration and HR, I can tell the team selection is very good. Initially, Prateek and [head chef] Kamlesh [Negi] were always there, explaining the dishes. Then there came a time, about a year in, when they started going out for pop-ups. We wondered how the rest of the team would present the meal without them there. But the training has clearly all been passed on to the team. For somebody who observes how people are trained, that was quite an interesting transition. There was nothing amiss. Of course, when they are there, the energy is different because of their presence and personalities.

Anshumaan: Sometimes I feel the magic is slightly missing when Prateek is not there. I can be a strong critic as well, so we give them feedback whenever we find something amiss. When we were at Massimo Bottura’s [chef-founder of Osteria Francescana], I rang up Prateek and told him, “Prateek, he is no match for you.” People have also gotten to know Kamlesh now, and he’s started talking some more. Earlier, he didn’t speak much. It just came naturally to him when he started travelling a lot with Prateek.

Anupama: The ambience in Naar is quite surreal; it’s in the middle of the forest. Anshumaan says he chose Darwa as the place to build our home because he wanted the chance to be away from people. I told Prateek, you came and put us back on the map. Now Naar is the landmark for our place.

Anshumaan, you cook for the Naar team when they visit. What does one make for chefs?

Anshumaan: Yes, I feed Prateek. I cook for him when he comes. I’ve been cooking most evenings since I was 11. I find it very relaxing. It’s better than holding a drink and sitting in front of the TV. Recently I made some red snapper fillets marinated in sriracha, coated with Kashmiri degi mirch and very little masala and then shallow-fried in unsalted butter. It turned out phenomenal. I am a big one for experimentation. When I make mutton, between Prateek and Akshay, they polish off whatever I make.

Anupama: I was in Pune once and he called me to say the Naar team was coming home for food. I said, only you can cook for chefs.