What to eat in Manali — the local plate, and where it is actually served
Two kitchens
Manali has two kitchens and they barely meet. One is the valley's own: the food of Kullu villages, cooked in homes, at festivals and in the dhabas that serve the district rather than the tourist. Steamed breads, river fish, red rice, beans, sours made from the orchards' fruit, and the feast called dham. The other is the food of a town that has fed travellers for forty years: the cafés of Old Manali and Vashisht with their pizza, pancakes, Israeli plates, Tibetan bowls and trout, and the restaurants on the Mall with everything from the plains.
Photos: Vyacheslav Argenberg (CC BY 4.0) · Ivishalbhutani (CC BY-SA 4.0) — via Wikimedia Commons, resized.
Both are worth eating. The trick is knowing which is which, and where the first one is actually served, because it is not on the Mall.
The valley's plate
Siddu. The dish the valley is known for: a wheat bread, leavened and steamed rather than baked, stuffed with a spiced filling of ground pulses or nuts and eaten hot with a spoon of ghee and a chutney. It is winter food and festival food, made at home, and the place a visitor meets it is a village dhaba. Above all the dhabas by Jana Falls beyond Naggar, about 32 km and 53 min from Manali, where the whole district drives up for it on a weekend. Ask for it with ghee. The ghee is the point.
Trout. The valley's cold streams have been farmed for trout for decades, and it is the one fish every menu here can serve fresh. Best plain — grilled or pan-fried with lemon and a little chilli — and worst under a heavy sauce. On the menu in Old Manali, at Jana, and at the lodges up the Solang road.
Red rice. Grown on the valley's terraces and served with the dals and the beans; nuttier and heavier than the white. A thali in a village dhaba comes on it.
Rajma and the beans. The hill rajma is small and dark and cooks soft, and the valley's beans go into thick stews that are the everyday food of the villages. With red rice and a sour, this is the plate most locals eat most days.
The sours. The valley's orchards — apple, plum, apricot — and its wild fruit go into chutneys and the sour drinks and sauces the dhabas keep on the table. Each place has its own; asking "what is the local sour" at Jana is the beginning of the best lunch in the valley.
Dham. The feast: a sequence of dals, a kadhi, rice, sometimes a sweet, cooked by traditional cooks in brass and served on leaf plates at weddings and temple festivals. It is a village occasion rather than a menu item; a visitor eats it by being invited, or at a festival, or at the rare place in the town that runs a dham thali for visitors. If you are in the valley in the festival season around the temples, ask.
Tea, and the winter stalls. Sweet milky tea at every dhaba, the dhabas at Marhi on the pass road being the ones everyone remembers. In winter, the stalls in the town's market lanes that fry and steam the season's food, siddu among it.
The town's plate
The lane in Old Manali does breakfast that lasts till eleven, wood-fired pizza, pasta, hummus and shakshuka, momos and thukpa, pancakes and cake, the trout, and coffee that is the best in the valley. It is the food of the travellers who have passed through since the seventies, cooked well and priced a step above the town. Vashisht's lane is the cheaper, rougher version of the same thing with a view across the river. The Mall and the streets round the bus stand do north Indian, south Indian and Punjabi dhaba food for the crowd, and do it fine.
A few cafés in both villages put a local plate on the menu — siddu, red rice, a Kullu thali. They are worth seeking out; our cafés page lists the places we know with what they serve and cost this season, and it is kept current rather than guessed.
Where the food is on the map
Old Manali for the cafés and a long breakfast — the two-day cafés-and-lanes plan is built round eating here. Vashisht for the cheaper lane and the hot springs after. Jana Falls above Naggar for the valley's own plate at the dhabas; the Naggar two-day plan gives it the lunch it deserves. Marhi for tea and parathas on the pass day. [Sissu](/places/sissu) for a Lahauli dhaba lunch on the far side of the tunnel, which is a different kitchen again — drier, barley and buckwheat, butter tea if you ask.
Small things
Cash at every dhaba above Solang and at Jana; the machines drop with the power. The Mall's sweet shops sell the valley's dry fruit and apple products, which travel well. Apples are on the roadside stalls from August, plums in June, and the juice stalls on the Kullu road are the best thing about the drive in. And the water: the springs are clear, but bottled or boiled is the sensible rule for a visitor everywhere in the valley except a kitchen you trust.
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What is the local food of Manali?
Mountain food. Siddu, a steamed wheat bread stuffed with a spiced filling and eaten with ghee. Trout from the rivers, red rice from the terraces, rajma and the local beans. The sours and chutneys made from the valley's fruit. And dham, the feast of dals, kadhi and rice cooked for weddings. Most of it is eaten in homes.
Where can you eat siddu in Manali?
At the dhabas by Jana Falls above Naggar, which the whole district drives up to for it. At the stalls in the town's market lanes in winter, when it is the season's food. At the few cafés in Old Manali and Vashisht with a local plate on the menu. Ask for it with ghee; the ghee makes it.
Is trout in Manali actually local?
The trout is farmed in the cold streams of the valley and has been for a long time; it is on the menu in Old Manali, at the dhabas by Jana Falls and in the lodges up the valley. It is the valley's one restaurant fish, best ordered plain, grilled or fried with lemon, not under a sauce.
What do the cafés in Old Manali serve?
Long breakfasts, wood-fired pizza, pasta, Israeli and Tibetan plates, the trout, pancakes and cake, and good coffee — the food of a place that has fed travellers for forty years, priced a step above the town. A few put siddu, red rice or a thali on the menu; ask. Our cafés page lists the places we know.