salt Lake magazine Dining Award winners pull flavors, ingredients and techniques from cuisines all over the world, becoming ever more particular in the source of their ingredients. Take a peek into the pantries of Utah’s best restaurants.
The Secret Ingredient – Timur Nepali food, like Indian food, is based on complex fragrance so the spices used must be very fresh. “These spices have to be hand-carried from Nepal,” says Bastakoti. “You can’t get them in any store around here. Whenever our chef or any member of our team visits Nepal they carry home a few pounds.” Timur, or Nepal pepper, is highly pungent, often mistaken for black or Chinese Sichuan pepper, but has an entirely different flavor and is, in fact, not related. There are two kinds of timur growing in the Himalayan Region—the rare, mouth-numbing boke timur is used in lentils, chicken chili, and Nepal’s famous momos.
2019 Dining Award Winner Himalayan Kitchen
- Himalayan Kitchen, 350 S. State St., SLC, 801-328-2077, himalayankitchen.com
The first Nepali restaurant in Salt Lake City, 2019 Dining Award Winner Himalayan Kitchen spawned a lot more. They all serve momos and goat curry, but HK’s is still the most charming and flavorful. Now Surya Bastakoti, a para-glider and the owner of Mt. Pumori Trekking and Expeditions before he settled in SLC, has a second location in South Jordan, an event center and a bar, Chakra Lounge. Himalayan Kitchen’s cuisine is required to be authentic because it’s a gathering place for the Salt Lake City Nepali and the local climbing community. They know Nepal.
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