Hunza & Gilgit-Baltistan Food (2026): Mountain Cuisine

The food of Hunza and Gilgit-Baltistan is unlike anything else in Pakistan, a distinct mountain cuisine shaped by high altitude, short growing seasons and centuries of self sufficiency in remote valleys. Where the plains feast on rich, meaty curries, the mountain people built a diet around apricots, walnuts, mulberries, buckwheat, barley, wheat and dairy, simple, wholesome and famously healthy. This guide explores the traditional food of Hunza and the wider Gilgit-Baltistan region: the signature dishes, the apricot culture at its heart, the celebrated link to longevity, the drinks, and how to taste it as a traveller.

Why Gilgit-Baltistan food is different

For most of their history the valleys of Hunza, Nagar, Gilgit and Baltistan were cut off from the rest of the world for months at a time by snow and impassable roads. Out of necessity, communities grew, preserved and stored almost everything they ate, and the cuisine reflects that: hardy mountain grains, fruit and nuts that could be dried for winter, dairy from yaks, cows and goats, and very little of the meat heavy, heavily spiced cooking of the lowlands. The food is mild, earthy and nourishing, built to fuel hard physical lives at altitude. It is also strikingly seasonal and local, with each valley keeping its own specialities. For a traveller used to the country's famous curries, the mountain food comes as a gentle, fascinating surprise, and it pairs beautifully with the scenery covered in our Hunza travel guide.

The must-try dishes

• Chapshuro, the famous Hunza meat pie: spiced minced meat sealed inside a round of dough and baked or griddled crisp, often called the Hunza pizza and beloved by every visitor.
• Harissa (or molida), a slow cooked dish of wheat and meat pounded into a thick, comforting porridge, served on special occasions.
• Dowdo (or daudo), a hand pulled wheat noodle soup cooked in broth with vegetables and sometimes apricot oil, the everyday comfort food of the valleys.
• Gyal or giyaling, thin buckwheat or wheat pancakes cooked on a griddle and drizzled with apricot oil or walnut, a traditional breakfast.
• Mamtu, steamed dumplings filled with minced meat and onion, showing the region's Central Asian and Tibetan ties.
• Hoi lo garma and chamus, traditional dishes of dough, dairy and herbs particular to the high valleys.
• Diram phitti, a sweet bread made from sprouted wheat flour, naturally sweet without sugar.

The apricot: heart of Hunza food

Nothing is more central to Hunza cuisine than the apricot. The valleys are famous for their orchards, and almost every part of the fruit is used. Apricots are eaten fresh in summer, dried on rooftops for winter, and pressed for a golden apricot oil used in cooking and traditionally for the skin and hair. The kernels inside the stones are cracked for their almond like nuts, ground into flour, or pressed for oil, and even appear in a chilled apricot soup. Walnuts and mulberries play a similar role, dried and stored, eaten as snacks, ground into breads or pressed for oil. This reliance on fruit and nuts gives the cuisine its distinctive sweetness and richness without heavy spice, and it is one of the reasons the Hunza diet has become so celebrated.

Food and the legend of Hunza longevity

Hunza is famous worldwide for stories of its people living long, healthy lives, and while the more extreme claims are folklore rather than proven fact, there is no doubt the traditional diet is exceptionally wholesome. It is built on whole grains, fresh and dried fruit, nuts, vegetables, dairy and modest amounts of meat, with very little sugar, processed food or heavy frying, and plenty of glacial mineral water and physical activity. Apricots, apricot kernels, walnuts and mulberries provide healthy fats and antioxidants, while buckwheat and barley provide hardy whole grain nutrition. Whatever the truth of the longevity legends, the Hunza way of eating is a genuinely healthy mountain diet, and tasting it gives a window into a slower, more self sufficient way of life.

Drinks of the mountains

• Tumuro tea, a herbal mountain tea brewed from wild thyme, fragrant and warming, drunk across Gilgit-Baltistan.
• Mulberry sharbat and juices, made from the abundant mulberries of the valleys, sweet and refreshing in summer.
• Salty butter tea, showing the Tibetan influence in Baltistan, where tea is churned with salt and butter.
• Gur gur and herbal infusions, traditional warming drinks for the long cold winters.
• Hunza water, the famous local term for the pure glacial water of the valleys, and historically for a fermented local drink.

Where and how to eat it

The best way to taste Gilgit-Baltistan food is in the valleys themselves. A growing number of guesthouses and local restaurants in Karimabad, Gilgit and Skardu now serve traditional dishes like chapshuro, dowdo and apricot dishes, often cooked to order, and staying in a family run guesthouse frequently means home cooked mountain meals. Many travellers find a chapshuro hot from the griddle, eaten with a cup of tumuro tea looking out over the orchards, one of the highlights of a northern trip. Markets in Hunza and Gilgit overflow with the region's famous dried apricots, apricot kernels, walnuts, mulberries and apricot oil, which make excellent, portable gifts and a delicious taste of the mountains to carry home. Plan the wider trip with our Gilgit travel guide and the Pakistan trip cost guide.

The seasons of mountain food

Gilgit-Baltistan food follows the seasons more closely than almost any cuisine in Pakistan. Spring brings fresh greens, dairy and the first fruit blossom; summer is the season of plenty, with fresh apricots, mulberries, cherries and vegetables in abundance; autumn is harvest and preservation time, when rooftops fill with drying fruit and grain is stored for winter; and winter is the season of the preserved larder, when dried fruit, nuts, stored grain and hearty soups like dowdo come into their own. This rhythm means what you eat depends entirely on when you visit, and travelling in summer or early autumn catches the valleys at their most abundant and delicious. It also explains the cuisine's deep emphasis on drying and storing, a survival skill turned into a distinctive and delicious food culture over many generations.

A cuisine worth seeking out

Because Gilgit-Baltistan food is mild, simple and unfamiliar, it is easy for a rushed traveller to miss it entirely, eating only the standard Pakistani curries served at tourist hotels. That would be a shame. Seeking out the genuine local dishes, asking guesthouse hosts to cook traditional food, visiting a chapshuro maker, trying tumuro tea and buying the valley's famous dried fruit, turns a trip to the north into a richer cultural experience. The food tells the story of how people have thrived in one of the harshest and most beautiful environments on earth, and it is as much a part of the region's character as its mountains and forts. Few cuisines in the world are so directly shaped by their landscape, and tasting it is a way of understanding the mountains themselves.

Related guides

Pair this with our Hunza travel guide, Gilgit travel guide and the Pakistani food guide for the national picture. Time a fruit filled visit with our cherry blossom in Hunza and autumn in Hunza guides, and browse every region on the destinations page.