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Helena's
Helena's is deservedly popular for its set breakfasts, one of the highest rooftops in Thamel, cosy interior and super friendly service, with a wide range of coffee, good cakes, tandoori dishes and steaks. It's warm and cosy in winter. If you are headed off trekking, consider breakfast on the eighth floor a form of high-altitude training.
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Himalatte Café
A North-American coffeehouse feel here, right down to the comfy sofas and Friday night music jams (courtesy of the owner's band). The impressive array of coffees are some of the best in Thamel, as are the cheeseburgers. The menu ranges from Caesar wraps to fruit crêpes and the Tuesday and Thursday set meal specials are good value. We recommend the excellent chicken saltimbocca - cheese, sage and bacon inside a chicken breast.
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Hot Bread
This bakery, inside a supermarket and across the road from the Pumpernickel Bakery, does a roaring trade in sandwiches, bread rolls, pizza slices and pastries. The ham and cheese rolls make a great lunch on the run. Bakery items are discounted by 50% after .
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K-Too Beer & Steakhouse
Run by the same people who run Kilroy's, the décor and furnishings here are deliberately rough and ready pub-style, and the atmosphere and food are excellent. Dishes range from Irish stew to spinach and potato salad with honey mustard dressing, and the excellent pepper steak is already a post-trekking classic. There is always some promotion going on here (currently free fried potato skins and an Irish coffee for every main course) and live European and British football is broadcast on the TV.
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Kilroy's of Kathmandu
Named after the Irish owner and head chef, this place is a definite cut above the average Thamel restaurant. The menu ranges from Balti chicken to beef and Guinness hotpot and interesting hybrids such as seafood thugpa (Tibetan noodle soup) with lemongrass, plus the desserts are great, especially the bread and butter pudding. There's always some kind of special going on, from Friday specials to champagne brunches. You can sit inside, or outside in the shady garden, complete with waterfall.
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Koto Restaurant
Some say Koto prepares the best Japanese food in town. If not the best, then it's close, with a wide range of dishes from cold soba noodles to sukiyaki and even fresh mackerel, plus several set menus. It's up a dingy little stairwell but the décor is cosy and intimate. There's a less expensive branch in Thamel.
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Koto Restaurant
When you need a break from endless 'same same but different' backpacker food, head for this budget branch of the acclaimed Durbar Marg restaurant. The Japanese flavours are subtle and complex and the bamboo décor is bright, elegant and clean. The sukiyaki 'young person' set meal is a great deal, with all kinds of salad trimmings, miso soup, green tea and unlimited rice.
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Krishnarpan Restaurant
One of the best places for Nepali food is the Krishnarpan Restaurant at Dwarika's Hotel, east of the centre near the Ring Rd. The atmosphere is superb and the food gets consistent praise from diners. Bookings are advisable. If you are coming on Friday, arrive in time for the dance show in the hotel courtyard.
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Krua Thai Restaurant
This is another good open-air Thai place. The food is reasonably authentic (read: spicy), with good curries, tom yam soup and papaya salad, although some dishes taste more Chinese than Thai. The Thai chef recently passed away so it remains to be seen whether standards will suffer.
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Kumari Restaurant
Next to the Century Lodge, this friendly hang-out attracts the densest collection of dreadlocked travellers in Kathmandu and is one of very few places that seems to have hung onto some of the mellowness of times past. All the travellers' favourites are here and the prices are some of the best in town.
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La Dolce Vita
Thamel's best attempt at comfort Italian cuisine offers up such delights as gnocchi, spinach and walnut ravioli, tasty baked potatoes, tiramisu and wines by the glass. Choose between the rustic red and white tablecloths and terracotta tiles of the main restaurant, a rooftop garden, the yummy-smelling espresso bar or sunny lounge space; either way the atmosphere and food are excellent. It's right on the corner opposite Kathmandu Guest House.
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Lazimpat Gallery Café
This friendly place occupies a unique niche, somewhere between a greasy spoon and an art café, with a menu boasting both sausage, bacon and beans and carrot and coriander soup. It's run by a British former VSO worker and so is popular with local volunteers. It's great for cheap, light lunch if you're out in Lazimpat.
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Mike's Breakfast
As the name suggests, this place specialises in big American-style breakfasts (Mike is a former Peace Corps worker), and it does them well. It's a bit out of the way but it's certainly a laid-back way to start (and occupy most of) the day, in the attractive, leafy garden of an old Rana house. The breakfast menu includes excellent waffles with yogurt, fruit and syrup and great eggs Florentine; all prices include organic Nepali coffee.
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Nargila Restaurant
This Israeli budget favourite is one of the very few places to offer good Middle Eastern food and is a quiet place to just take a break from the bustle outside. Try a shwarma (grilled meat and salad in a pitta) or hummus served with pitta, washed down by a mint tea. The hot waffle with fruit and yogurt is just the best in Kathmandu. The staff are endearingly brusque.
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Nepali Chulo
Closer to Thamel is this new restaurant in the wing of a 157-year-old Rana palace, the Phora Durbar. Most people choose the fixed menu of 11 dishes but ordering à la carte is possible. Choose between floor or table seating but get here before to catch the live music and dance. A chulo is a Nepali-style stove.
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New Orleans Café
Hidden down an alley near the Brezel Bakery, New Orleans boasts an intimate candlelit vibe and a great selection of music, often live. It's a popular spot for a drink but the menu also ranges far and wide, from Thai curries to Creole jambalaya. If you have your own laptop you can get free wireless Internet access during the day at the New Orleans Café.
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Northfield Café
Next door to Pilgrims Feed 'N Read, this open-air spot is the place for serious breakfast devotees (huevos rancheros included), with fresh juice and smoothies, and bottomless filter coffee. The Mexican and Indian tandoori dinner dishes are excellent and the sunny garden is a real plus in winter.
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Old Tashi Delek Rest
This place, a long-time favourite, feels like a trekking lodge that's been transplanted from the Everest trek into a Thamel time warp. Prices are cheap, the Tibetan momos (and especially the richosse momo soup) are authentic and the spinach mushroom enchilada is surprisingly good for Tibetan-Mexican food (Tib-Mex?). It's down a corridor, slap bang in the centre of the Thamel action.
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Pilgrims Feed 'N Read
Keep walking past the Self-Help section of Pilgrims Book House and you'll end up in this quiet and classy café, with indoor and garden seating. The focus is on herbal teas and vegetarian Indian food (including dosa ) and there's no shortage of nearby reading material. Weekly sitar concerts accompany dinner here.
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Pumpernickel Bakery
Bleary-eyed tourists crowd in here every morning for fresh croissants, yak-cheese sandwiches, pastries and filter coffee in the pleasant garden area at the back. The restaurant is self service. Pumpernickel Bakery has a good notice board worth checking for information on apartments, travel and trekking partners, yoga and meditation courses, language courses and cultural events.
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Roadhouse Café
The big attraction here is the pizzas from the wood-fired oven (we have been assured the wood is off cuts from a Terai timbermill). The pizzas are pretty darn good, and the décor, especially the courtyard out back, is warm and intimate. The starters, pasta dishes and coffees are all good, as is the service. Top it all off with a scoop of Baskin Robbins ice cream. Credit cards are accepted.
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Royal Hana Garden
This place is a bit of a find - there are two outdoor hot-spring baths where you can luxuriate for as long as you like before heading inside for a very reasonably priced Japanese meal. It's perfect for small groups and it's worth ringing ahead to book a soak. The restaurant is in Lazimpat, just north of the Hotel Ambassador.
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Sandwich Point
A tiny place back at the main Thamel Chowk, this is a good little spot for a wide variety of rolls; perfect for the late-night munchies.
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Seoul Arirang
This excellent Korean place has a pleasant rooftop area and serves dishes barbecued at your table, as well as Korean classics such as bulgogi (beef and ginger) and bibimbap (rice with beef, vegetables and hot sauce). The owner is Korean but the chefs are Nepali. The picture menu guarantees no nasty surprises.
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Snowman Restaurant
A long-running and mellow place, this is one of those rare Kathmandu hang-outs that attracts both locals and backpackers, drawn to some of the best cakes and crème caramel in town. The chocolate cake has been drawing travellers for close to 40 years now (it's not the same cake…). When John Lennon starts singing 'goo goo g'joob' on the stereo it really does feel very 1967…
