Kathmandu Kitchen in Asheville

We saw the Kathmandu Kitchen and decided to try Chicken Momos. The ambiance and decor of the restaurant was amazing. It was a quite and nice restaurant. They only do takeout no seating is allowed. We ordered Chicken Momos from the menu. We got our order in 15-20 mins. The momos was amazing and delicious. We loved our food and it was freshly made and hot.

We ordered Biryani. It was bland and oily. Serving size was really small. All that and we were made to wait at least 40 mins for our order. If not for the nice staff working there, the place wouldnt even deserve the 2 stars.

MAY 23,2021 They are open for take out only even though this is not posted on the website.We drove about an hour just for real authentic food from Nepal. We found a park bench down the street to set and eat. The food was what we expected and very good but they should not advertise that they are open for dine-in.

I did not like the food. If you are looking for Indian food then this is not the place. I ordered tandoori chicken but I dont know what they gave me, it was boneless and I have never seen boneless tandoori chicken with small pieces. I think any other place would be better that this. The vegetable biryani was also horrible. This place does not know how to cook.

We did take out our dinner.Samosa: 2 stars. Felt there was only potatoes and turmeric without any spices.Veg noodles: 3.5 stars. it was good, similar to Hakka noodle that we like. We ordered medium spicy but it felt like very spicy.Gobi Manchuria: 4 stars. was delicious.Wish there was kids menu.

Ordered food, food was delivered, food was delivered in utter chaotic condition! Looked like the food was thrown to the ground at our door (check out the pic). Cannot contact the delivery service "Takeout Central," because they left for the day before their drivers were done delivering. Havent tried the food so apologies for the preemptive two star rating but frothing at the mouth tends to persuade me to speak up and out. I will update once we actually try the food. Currently: NOT SATISFIED NOTE TO THE PROPRIETOR: I would recommend changing the delivery service before business goes south.

For almost 4 years my young adult daughters and I eat here. We have loved it every time-And have dined in at least 5 times and this last time a carry out due to Covid. The family/staff that own it are extremely conscientious and the food is delicious. They pay attention to detail and are fair. Last time we tipped them cash and accidentally put a tip on credit card bill, however they caught the mishap and did not charge twice for tip. We will continue to frequent this one of a kind gem with authentic food that we love.

I actually give this 3.5 Stars. In the COVID climate I have tried to err on the side of being more fair in reviews I leave but I still found myself wanting a better meal here despite it being takeout only and not at all busy. I have had far better Indian food in other cities but this is one of the better ones I have experienced in Asheville. A touch on the pricey side though. I cant speak about dining in but the takeaway service was friendly and easy.

8/1/2020 UPDATE: I appreciate the restaurants apology and they sent a free dessert with my delivery tonight from Takeout Central 🙌🏾💝 thank you! 5 stars all the way, best restaurant in Asheville ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️The food is DELICIOUS 😍 best Nepalese food I’ve had since used to live in Columbus, OH 💗 The only reason why I couldn’t give it 5 stars was because my rice was left off of my veggie Dal Fry 😕. And I don’t have any basamati rice at home so I had to make it with forbidden rice which is good but not the same lol. And I ordered takeout because I didn’t want to cook and I ended up cooking anyways 😑 lol.The flavors of everything is so tasty! Eating from here nourishes my soul 💖. The dal has an amazing array of flavors that come in layers as you eat. The vegetable mono is very fresh and the dipping sauce is divine ✨. The Aloo Tikki is probably the best I’ve had anywhere and the Gulab Jamun is the perfect sweet treat to end the meal with 💗.The prices are fair but I was expecting at least 4 Gulab Jamun’s and Aloo Tikki’s based on some pics I looked at while researching what to order.All in all this is one of the best restaurants in Asheville and I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to finally experience that 😄💕

This wonderful restuarant serves delicious food and drinks. My favorite food is Indian and they did not disappoint! I also loved the authentic chai and kept going back to the buffet until satisfied! We also had a lot of people attend from our event (2020 Vision at Jubilee!and everyone seemed happy!

Authentic Nepalese cuisine and great ambiance.

Kathmandu has become my favorite Indian restaurant. They get the balance of spices just right. I love Indian food but sometimes find it too aggressive or pungent, but somehow the spices here are extremely flavorful yet gentle. I have so many favorite dishes from the curries of course to the chili mushrooms, momos and even the daal soup. Their chai is the best in town—authentic, creamy, smooth and balanced. Service is outstanding. The owners are very welcoming and do their absolute best to accommodate customers. I love the peaceful atmosphere with Nepali hand-carved woodwork. What a gem in Asheville!

This place is a hidden gem in downtown. The food is always on point. The staff has been incredible each visit. There are food options for everyone. The setting is quiet and calm which can make for great break from a busy day shopping. 5 stars!

I read the reviews and had mixed feeling before going there. Here is our review: Being a Nepali, I felt the food was not authentic. I guess it is Americanized version. Pricey food and we couldnt finish the food that we ordered. Naan was literally like cardboard. We couldnt even finish one naan and normally we order 3 naan. Looks like it was cooked earlier and just heated up. I like the ambience and vibe but not a big fan of service. Had to ask repedetly to bring water. Not recommended.

Coming from Charlotte, I waited to try this place for 5 years (we always postponed to try other places). As a big fan of Indian food, naturally I wanted to try Nepalese. Today I had my opportunity. The vibe inside is really cool: neat wooden trellis and colorful flags. The service is friendly. And I even thought the food was tasty and interesting. Then, as I went to pay for my meal, I noticed their current 85 health score and all of that went out the window. I can’t find it in my heart to award 5 stars to a place that has that low of care for sanitation. Shame on me for not doing more research.

Food was expensive and lacked flavor, portions were small. For 2 vegetarian entrees and 2 naan it cost $56 and we just drank water. The people were nice and the decor was really nice but I would suggest neighboring restaurants.

Revisited for their lunch buffet, it was pretty good. If youre looking for a more vegan friendly assortment then I think this would be a good place for you, I was hoping for more variety of meat curries but overall it was good. The atmosphere makes you feel in another country.

This is no where close to authentic Indian taste. The food lacks Indian Spices, Flavours, Aroma and Traditional Tadka on every item we ordered. Although waiter was kind enough to provide us with complimentary sliced onions and a small bowl of plain cashew, the food was far from being just ok or acceptable. I am from India and I have been to many Indian restaurants in US and this is not the one that I will recommend. As far as ambiance goes, they do have some Himalayan look and style decor but seating area is bit congested and felt like too many tables crammed together. I have tasted Momos in North India(mountainsand the Momos we got here were just tasteless (no salt, no ginger or garlic flavoursthe dip with momo was lacking salt too. Main course and starters were no different than Momos, everything missing spicy-ness level for authentic Indian taste and no salt or lemon in dish. Quantity of food you get for the price was shocking. $5 will give you 3 small lemon sized tasteless aloo tikki. Service that was provided to us was the only good experience of our visit and so 2 stars or else I would have given 1 as there is no negative star options. I will not recommend to anyone looking for true Indian or Himalayan(Indo- Chinesefood.

This is not true Indian taste. From reception to food nothing which I can recommend in this restaurant, bad service, tasteless food and the worst is size of plate (check imageIndian food can’t be served in this tiny plates, it’s size of a fork. Very disappointing.

Needs some improvement over momos. With bbq flavor, the noodles was deliciois though. Cocktails were fine too.

Food is good here, but it took a little long time for momo. so If you are ordering momo, please order some appetizer for your hungry stomach.

What a little gem. Absolutely loved the decor and set up. Ambient music and lighting set the tone for my dinner. I was a bit taken back on how sparse it was inside though. For a second, I thought they were closed. No customers, just me. Other Restaurants were thumping. 15 minutes later 2 more people showed up. There were however people popping in for a look at the menu. Most restaurants post one outside for people to look at. Maybe that would bring more foot traffic inside?? I however just took a chance and enjoyed my meal. Delicious. - Namaste

I had really high hopes for this place, but the lunch buffet we went to on Monday didnt really deliver. The food was fair, service was good, staff was friendly, and the decoration and atmosphere was great. It almost felt like you were eating in a Tibetan lodge. But the only curry they had at the time was a very generic "Bombay chicken curry" and it just didnt blow me away. The other dishes were all fine, just not very great. Hopefully the buffet menu rotates and we just came at an unfortunate time.

We’re big fans of Indian and Nepali food and this sounded like an interesting menu to try while vacationing in Asheville. We were VERY disappointed. The food tasted just about okay but the service was very slow and poor. The appetizer took over an hour to be served- we eventually needed up taking it as a to- go dish. To top it all, one of the servers who brought our food was questioning our request for an additional plate for our entree. They’re clearly very understaffed. Will not be back again for sure. And would not recommend.

Cant say anything about the food because we never got any. This was the worst service we have ever received and after a nightmare date night we walked out. Heres our story: We walked in Saturday night and were seated fairly quickly by the hostess/another waitress but thats when the trouble started. First there werent any menus available no big deal we just waited a few minutes until another table had finished with theirs. Strange about the lack of menus but whatever. Then I looked down and saw something the size of a quarter crusted on the napkin. Again not a huge deal just dont use that part. After 15 minutes of sitting there waiting for our waitress to come take orders she finally shows up with waters and apologizes for taking so long. Now they were busy but not so busy it should take 10 minutes to get water(maybe 80% of the tables were taken). We placed our orders and went about our date. When I first took a drink of water I noticed multiple things floating in my cup. So their washing machine and dishwasher dont work great. Me and my fiancée continued talking and trying to flag down our waitress who was staking out the bar area(we were in the very front corner of the restaurant). At 45 minutes we finally got our waitress attention and asked for a new water. She promptly got a new water for me and then us that there was a problem with our order. She had just found out the kitchen didnt have the ingredients to make the bison momos I had ordered 35 minutes ago so she told them to start on yak momos. What? You didnt know for more than a half hour that the kitchen couldnt complete our order and now you are telling us that we will have to wait another half hour for something I didnt even pick. Id imagine bison and yak taste similar but to not even ask is strange too. I have never worked in the restaurant business but I do know a lot of people who have. The fact that she Adidnt know that they didnt have bison that day Bdidnt find out when she put in the order Cnever checked on the order/was told when picking up another tables order shows their complete incompetence. At this point we were mad. Not even so much the basket of naan we ordered to snack on for the better part of an hour. At 55 minutes and only 2 visits from our waitress we got up and left. I feel sorry for anyone else getting their food that night. Now you may wonder why we didnt talk to a manager and make a stink out of it but we were on a date night just trying to unwind after an extremely stressful week and we didnt want a mess we just wanted food. Needless to say no matter how tasty the food may be we will never be going back. This is the first and only time in my life Ive had service this bad and the only time Ive ever written a review about a restaurant.

The food and atmosphere was spot on! The best tikka masala I have had in NC!

Yummy lunch buffet if you are into Indian/Nepali food! Great place to introduce a friend to the cuisine as well. The buffet has wonderful gluten free options - most of the batter they cook with is gluten free on the buffet. I used to come here for lunch like ALL the time when I had an office in Asheville - but make it a frequent stop when I am in the city for business or visiting friends. I LOVE the vibe here too - decor is ABFAB and the staff are friendly. Its a peaceful escape from the outside world to enjoy a pleasant meal around lovely surroundings.

Too Expensive in comparison to OtherToo slow serving... They make us Waiting for hour to get our order and give rice at first then after a hour they bring curry.They forgot our order for lassi and ask before we leave.Quantity of Curry and food they provided is too few not enough for single person.Test of food is Ok not good as I expected.I only like is decorations that is impressive.

I was so excited to find a place that had clearly marked vegan options on the menu, especially when its Indian and that item is sag. Sag is my favorite and finding places where I can eat it is not an easy task. The hubs and I ate here and ordered samosas, vegetable mo-mo, chana sag, and lamb korma. The ONLY things that had any kind of flavor to them were the tamarind sauce for the samosas and the vegetable mo-mo. It wasnt that they werent spicy (which they werent but that can be excusable), its that there was NO FLAVOR. Everything was bland. We gave honest feedback when asked how things were and the server just tried to explain to us that the owner/cooks were from Nepal, not India, and try to tell us the difference between Northern and Southern Indian. I just sat dumbfounded as the hubs explained to him that we were very familiar with Indian food and how it is one of our staples. The owner/manager never visited the table, no one tried to make anything right. They only took off the chana sag when asked to since it was almost untouched. This place would be out of business in no time in Metro-Atlanta. If you know & love Indian food, I would advise trying somewhere else.

We could get a seat right away on a Saturday night around 8 pm . That was a plus. Servers were pleasant and attentive. But my food was just so-so. Chana Masala seemed like they opened a can of garbanzos and heated them up with some rather bland and not very interesting sauce. I was expecting more.

Loved the food here. Pic (anticlockwise from below): chicken momo, chili chicken and chicken chau-chau.

Admittedly we arrived later in the evening with a party of 6 but this was the worst food I have had in a long while. The food was cold and the drinks were warm. We didn’t see the waitress until the bill came once the food was out which was a real disappointment since maybe I could have got the food remade so there wasn’t a film on the top of my cold tasteless food. I just wanted some spice in my life...and my food. A sad tasteless expensive meal.

A little pricey for the dumpling dishes, and the chicken tikka masala tasted like plain tomato sauce. Service was confusing at first, with three different people taking part, and then losing a portion of our drink request in their back and forth communication.

We visited for dinner and had just an OK meal. I have had much better Indian food at other places but everything here was just OK (although nothing we had was bad). Might have just been a bad night as I have been to plenty of Indian restaurants that were great one week and bad the next. Service was a bit slow but the staff was very friendly and helpful. Drinks were good and the beer selection was great compared to other Indian restaurants. The atmosphere was very nice. Prices seemed OK.

Great service, food, and iced chai tea!

Great experience. Paneer pakora was very good. Hubby said the chicken tandoori was excellent. I had the sauce it comes with and it was sooooo good. The garlic bread was excellent. The veggie dumplings were good.Nice atmosphere. Staff was very attentive.No outside seating.

Convenient hours and DELICIOUS food! The atmosphere in this space is warm and bright. Really appreciated the variety of different unique nonalcoholic beverages there was to offer. The sauces were exquisite, the bread fresh, and the portions to be abundant. Walk right into India in the center of downtown Asheville!

Absolutely delicious. Had the pleasure of sharing a table with a couple co-workers and was pleased at the service as well as the quality of food. Ive never tried Nepalese food before and was interested in the cross cultural examination of Chinese and Indian influence on their dishes. Food was in a buffet style but this did not diminish its quality. 5/5 would recommend for lunch buffet!

**update**Since management replied and thinks I should have looked at the rating prior to eating. I typically do not make a habit of seeking out the rating prior to eating as I usually have faith that they are up to proper standard. Like i said i happened to look up after taking 1 bite and saw the low B and immediately got up to leave.*Went for lunch buffet. We got our food and sat down. Luckily I happened to look at up and see the sanitation rating before beginning to eat. It was a low B 83. That is entirely too low for me. We got up told management we were leaving because of that and walked out. There is no reason any restaurant should be that low. After looking it up it appears a lot of hand washing issues and food not being held at correct temps both cold and hot. All 3 of these are bad recipes for food borne illness. I cant believe people give this place such high reviews.

The chicken 65 and roasted eggplant dishes were excellent. The eggplant had a rich smoky flavor and at a 2, the right amount of heat. Chicken 65 was a tandoori-like barbecue. The service was friendly and helpful. We plan to come back and try their lunch buffet.

The service was not the best. We waited a while to be seated, even though the restaurant only had 3 tables full. The waitress got our order wrong. We wanted an appetizer sampler but got a plate of pakoras and were charged for 2 extra beers.But besides the inattentive service, we thoroughly enjoyed our food. In fact, I would say, it was exceptional. Our vegetarian eggplant curry, chicken korma and lamb korma and garlic naan were all incredibly flavorful and tender. It was heavenly. I will be back for the food and the quiet ambience. The sloppy service is by no means a deal breaker, but it would be nice if they speeded things up a touch and aimed at getting orders and bills right.Bottom line: Kathmandu Cafe serves incredible food in a unique and an intimate setting.

Food was just okay. A lot on the menu had changed from when I visited last time few years ago. I was excited about more Nepalese food like aaloo taama which is no longer on the menu. Very limited selection for Nepalese food in a Nepalese restaurant ☹️. Ordered 2 items - Mo:Mo: and Chau-Chau. Mo:Mo: was okay to eat, not as bad or worse than some other restaurants Ive been to, but definitely could be improved. Chau-Chau tasted more like Nepalese taste, enjoyed that.

Had the lunch buffet and they had a large selection of fresh offerings. Loved the ambiance! Ive never been to Nepal, but it really felt like they made every effort to bring Nepal to Asheville. Staff was attentive and friendly.

The food is amazing! Great options for vegetarians and meat eaters alike. The atmosphere is incredibly inviting and warm. The staff was friendly and helpful in making decisions about meal options. Diverse drink selection - the chai tea was delicious! Highly recommended and will definitely be returning.

On a block with an amazing multitude of ethnic restaurants to choose from, the sandwich board out front caught my interest and brought me in. Came in to enjoy the buffet and found a diverse mix of vegetarian and meat dishes. Great taste, fantastic flavors and responsive service constantly topping off my copper water class. Really a great choice.

Food poisoning so bad that I had to be taken by ambulance to Mission hospital!!! We ate there on February 19 just after 8 pm and by 10 pm I was violently ill!!! I was told by the doctor that food poisoning that happens that quickly is a staph-based food poisoning. I wish I had read the reviews here before we ever went there. We wanted to try something new and boy am I regretting that decision. That meal has probably cost me a couple thousand dollars. BEWARE!!! DONT EAT HERE! It is horrible!!! Reported to the health department!

I ate here about three months ago. The food was mediocre and the service was seriously lacking. And like another reviewer here, I showed up 20-30 minutes before close & the waiter reluctantly seated me, making it a point that he wanted me out of there before closing time. I was planning to do this anyway, but I had a hard time enjoying my meal after that. I came back a few weeks later to give this place another shot, but again I was disappointed. I tried to like Kathmandu Cafe, I really did, but I have to give it a thumbs-down.

Great experience overall. Gorgeous and relaxing atmosphere, excellent hostess and waitress (in both capacities). Appetizers were incredible. Went for the chickpea fried vegetables and also had the chutney and complementary fried pita pieces. Next time will definitely go for the whole sampler. Basmatic rice cooked to perfection and sauces were very tasty. The rose tea and cardamon beverage was delicious.FYI: the sanitation grade as of 7-28 was 93%, not the lower grade others had recently mentioned.

Service was terrible: we didnt get menus, silverware, or water in a timely fashion. Dinner took forever to arrive, and one of our meals didnt come until 10 minutes after everyone else at the table. Some of our dishes were lukewarm instead of hot. The chairs were extremely uncomfortable for all body shapes and sizes. One of us received a meat dish instead of the vegetarian dish that was ordered. Good tasting food should not be so painful to come by.

I eat here at least one a month: the food is delicious and unique and the service is unbeatable! They have plenty of vegetarian food (and meat dishes if thats for youand I never get tired of the menu. In fact, there are still things I havent tried because I keep ordering the same dishes. If youve never had Indian or Nepali food, they will help you find something delicious, or just enjoy a cup of the best chai tea I have ever tasted