The hour after first light

You left Lakeside while the lanes were still blue and quiet. Perhaps a dog watched you pass, perhaps a shutter was half raised on a tea stall, perhaps you were simply too sleepy to notice. Up on Sarangkot you stood among other cold hands wrapped round other warm cups and waited for the first light to find Machhapuchhre and the Annapurna range. Whatever the sky decided to do that day, you went, and that is the part that counts.

Then the light is simply there, ordinary and enormous, and the spell loosens. Someone laughs. Someone checks a phone. You realise your fingers are cold and that you have been up for a very long time by holiday standards. This letter is for that moment, the one nobody photographs: the way back down, when the only plan is something warm and a chair.

Coming down to Lakeside

The road down has its own pleasures. The valley is waking at a normal pace, as if it did not know you had already been to the top of the morning. By the time you reach the lake, Lakeside is shaking itself out: shutters rising, a broom on a pavement, the first walkers heading for the water.

Our doors open at 7:00 am, and we are on Street 16. Come in with your jacket still on and your hair still flattened by the wind. Nobody here will ask where you have been, though if you want to tell us, we like to hear it. The room is a slow-morning room by design, which suits a body that has done its big thing before most people have found their socks.

Something warm first

After a cold viewpoint, the first instinct is warmth, and two plates on the menu answer it well.

Mushroom Delight is one of the dishes we are proudest of, and it is a good plate for a morning that began in the dark. It comes warm, it is properly a sit-down breakfast, and it asks nothing of you except a fork. If you cannot decide, this is the safe, happy choice.

Egg & Mushroom Toast is the quieter cousin: toast, egg, mushroom, and the kind of simple combination that tastes better the hungrier you are. Eggs are a sensible thing to want after an early start, since protein is what tends to keep you full. If that idea appeals, our letter on protein breakfasts in Pokhara goes into it further.

If your appetite is still waking up

Not everyone arrives ravenous. Some people come down from a cold dawn feeling oddly light, still half in the clouds, wanting something gentle. For you there is the Light & Healthy Breakfast, another of our featured plates. A light plate is a kind thing to ask for when the day has barely started.

And then there is the pastry route. A Plain Croissant from Dear Bakes, with a coffee beside it, is a perfectly respectable breakfast for someone who intends to sleep afterwards. We have written about the baking itself in our croissant letter, if you like to know how a thing is made before you eat it.

The coffee question

After a dawn like that, you have earned a proper cup, and it is worth choosing with a little care.

A V-60 is for the person who wants to sit quietly and taste the coffee. It is a slower, cleaner cup, made by hand, and it suits a quiet table and a conversation that has run out of urgency. A cappuccino is for the person who wants a hug in a cup: warm milk, a steady hand, something to hold with both palms while the feeling returns to them.

Neither is a wrong answer. If you are curious about how we think about coffee in general, Coffee & Slow Mornings in Lakeside is the longer version of this paragraph.

A small plan for the rest of the day

What to do after sunrise in Pokhara is a lovely problem, because the answer is mostly: very little, and slowly. You have already done the most ambitious thing before breakfast. Here is how we would spend what is left of the morning.

None of it needs a schedule. The lake is close by in Lakeside, and it does not mind what time you arrive.

  • Sit down first, eat second, decide nothing until the cup is half empty.
  • Order one warm plate and one thing to share, such as a croissant, if the table is feeling generous.
  • Walk to the water afterwards, even if only to look at it, and let breakfast settle.
  • Go back to your room for a proper nap if your body asks for one. It is allowed.

Before you come

We make no promises about the mountains. They keep their own counsel, and the weather keeps its own calendar. What we can say is that the doors open at 7:00 am, the kitchen is warm, and we would be glad to see people who have been up since the dark.

If you want to see everything we cook before you walk in, the full menu is there to read. But honestly, a seat, a plate and a good cup are the whole plan. Come down from the hill, and come in.

Yours, every morning,
— Dear Breakfast