High in the Chug Valley of Arunachal Pradesh is Damu’s Heritage Dine, which started in March 2024.
Supported by the World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF) India, the boutique eatery offers the Monpa people a lifeline of sorts.
As host Leike Chomu (23) explains, “Previously, our basti (hamlet) would earn from selling hunted meat or chopped wood. But the WWF wanted the forest to be saved.”
The diner is housed inside a 300-year-old abandoned house, one of the members’ ancestral homes.
Some of the dishes include takto khaji (buckwheat noodles), millet tacos, thukpa (Tibetan noodle soup), and shyamarku (ginger chicken).
Guests are taken on a guided tour before lunch.
Some of the standout dishes are churra gombu (a corn pie stuffed with fermented yak cheese), tsa tsa thukpa (soup with boiled corn and fish-mint), red rice, khura (buckwheat pancakes) with marmalade and churra (fermented yak cheese).
What sets Damu’s apart is that it is a universe of self-sufficiency. We don’t buy anything from outside. Everything that we serve is from produce grown on our farms, they explain.
The meal is accompanied by a guided tour to the local ‘Living Museum’ filled with memorabilia of the Northeast Indian lifestyle.
Leike shares, “Here, we show how the Monpa tribe lives, what they do, what they eat, the utensils they use, the traditional ways of cooking, the clothes they wear and how things were in the past.”
Book your experience here.