Bir - A Caffeinated Cafe Hopping Guide to the Best Places to Eat and Drink
Situated a couple of hours down the road from Dharamshala, and set in amongst beautiful green mountains, Bir is famous for having some of the best paragliding in the whole of India. If jumping off mountains isn’t for you, or you’re just a bit peckish after your plummet, Bir also boasts a vibrant cafe and restaurant scene.
Here’s our guide to our favourite things to eat when staying in this hidden gem of Himachal Pradesh!
Silver Linings Cafe (Location)
Set just off the main road on the far side of the landing site, this little cafe spills out amongst the trees and roses and feels like you're sitting in a cottage garden.
The cafe has a small menu of cakes, sandwiches, brunch options and soups as well as a couple of large plates of pasta.
Their homemade ice tea is excellent, refreshing, caffeinated and not too sweet.
The spinach and pepper soup is served piping hot and feels like it came straight out of the vegetable patch behind the cafe.
Who could resist a slice of banoffee pie?!
Silver Linings Cafe is also popular for their banoffee pie (thanks to an influencer on Instagram) and we can definitely say that it lives up to the hype!
Just be warned, the Silver Linings Cafe can get extremely busy, so you may have to wait for a table.
Avva’s Cafe The Flavours of Southern India (Location)
As its name suggests, Avva’s specialises in southern Indian delicacies. Specifically dosa, uttapam and idli. Set just off the main road and boasting an elegant dining room overlooking the rice paddies, the restaurant has a modern asethetic with an inviting but minimalist interior. Avva’s Cafe is a distinctly higher class feeling restaurant. Despite this, the prices are thoroughly reasonable and the food delicious.
We’ve both eaten lots of dosas whilst in India and can safely report that the dosas we ate at Avva’s were excellent. The menu had all the normal offerings; masala, paneer, ghee etc but we opted for the garlic, chilli vegetable and the black pepper cheese. Both were fantastic. We especially liked that they served the potato masala on the side rather than inside the dosa as this meant the batter remained extra crispy!
Lunch for two with an iced tea cost 540 rupees (£5.18 or $6.53).
The Dark Roast Coffee Co (Location)
Set on the far side (towards Dharamshala) of the paragliding landing field, this small coffee shop quickly became our go to. Serving fantastic hot and cold coffees, Dark Roast also has a great rooftop to chill out in and maybe get some work done. As a bonus Dark Roast had really good internet, something of a rare treasure when budget backpacking!
Even John couldn’t resist the Oreo chocolate doughnuts!
The coffee really is great at Dark Roast and was our favourite in Bir. Not too sweet and not too bitter the ‘classic cold coffee’ was a perfect pick me up in the afternoon. Those who are looking for a sugar fix, check out the Oreo stuffed doughnuts!
Coffees range from 120 rupees for an americano to 160 rupees for the specialty classic cold coffee.
Alongside the sweet treats of doughnuts and cakes, there is also a full food menu offering sandwiches, pizza, pasta and snacks.
The best seats in the house are upstairs on the stools overlooking the stepped rice paddies behind the landing site. If you’re lucky you’ll even get paragliders circling above.
Charlie’s Cafe (Location)
Charlie’s Cafe commands what may be the best location in Bir. This squat, square, concrete building sits slap bang in the middle of the paragliding landing field. There are no neighbours and from the roof terrace you have uninterrupted views both up the mountain and rice fields as well as down the landing field and out across the valley below.
We’d recommend heading here late afternoon and staking your claim to a prime seat so that you can enjoy a phenomenal sunset and paragliding display from the roof! As the sun goes down, the last mass waves of paragliders will descend on to the landing field, with one swooping in and landing every twenty to thirty seconds is quite a sight!
The cafe serves all the usual, hot and cold drinks as well as a food menu and light bites. We can recommend the lemonade ice tea that was refreshing and sweet.
The black tea divided us, with John enjoying it and Ellie hating the liquorice taste.
The lemonade tea was only 80 rupees each and the black tea was cheaper still at 60 rupees. Thoroughly reasonable given the prime location.
It would also make a great spot for those waiting for more adventurous friends to return from paragliding.
There are lots of monasteries in Bir and its not uncommon to see monks join in with watching the paragliders land!
Secret Garden (Location)
When you walk through Bir there are signs everywhere boasting the Secret Garden to have the “best butter chicken” in Bir. This is a high claim and one we were eager to test.
Located just behind the beautiful Deer Park Institute, the Secret Garden restaurant is on the ground floor of a pretty hostel. Set within a colourful garden (not particularly secret) the restaurant serves up a variety of Indian classics specialising in all things tandoor based.
We of course opted for the butter chicken alongside a mixed vegetable jalfrezi curry and tandoor roast naan breads. We did not try every butter chicken in Bir, so can’t authoritatively say that Secret Garden’s was the best, but we can definitely report that it was delicious! Tandoor roasted, juicy tender chicken in a smokey rich butter laden sauce, it was perfect alongside the crispy naan. Paired with the sharp, yet light mixed vegetables it was a fantastic dinner.
Our dinner of butter chicken, vegetable jalfrezi, rice and two naan breads came to 750 rupees. A little more pricey, but really reasonable in the grand scheme of things.
Quite possibly the “best” butter chicken in the whole of Bir!
Snowy's Cafe (Location)
Set on top of a gym, Snowy’s Cafe has two important things going for it. One, a large and extremely friendly dog and two, Snowy himself, a white rabbit sitting proudly in its hutch at one end of the rooftop cafe. We enjoyed some very sweet iced teas here. The rooftop terrace is a great sun trap in the late afternoon and a very chilled out place to sit and play cards.
Drinks were around 120 rupees and the staff there were extremely friendly, even giving us a small shot glass of rose flavoured drink as a welcome when we sat down.
Birdhouse (Location)
The Birdhouse Cafe is a great brunch, lunch or dinner choice. The Birdhouse specialises in baking its own breads and cakes and specialises in sourdough. Serving all manner of brunch items from full cooked breakfasts, egg combinations and sourdough toasties, the cafe also serves lovely coffee and on Saturday evenings make sourdough based fresh pizzas. These pizzas were excellent and were topped with some really delicious imported cheeses and meats.
We actually stayed at The Birdhouse during our time in Bir and the accommodation there was excellent. Cute, comfy en-suite rooms that were nicely decorated and with a small private balcony all for a good price.
Cafe Cloud Door (Location)
Cafe Cloud Door is set a little way away from the main landing strip, towards the road that leads down and out from Bir. It is completely worth the short walk!
Cafe Cloud Door serves, what was to us, our favourite mutton biryani we have eaten in India. Huge portions (one plate is easily enough for two people), crispy, crunchy sweet fried onions, mutton so tender it literally falls off the bone and if you’re lucky, indulgently rich bone marrow. All of this is served alongside a great raita. It was honestly one of our favourite meals we had in India and one we’ve been craving ever since.
One portion of mutton biryani (enough for two people) and two cups of green tea cost 470 rupees. Frankly a steal for the portion and quality!
It doesn’t look like much, but this quite possibly may be the best dish we ate in the whole of our India trip!
Thanks for reading,
John & Ellie x
#adventuresofjellie
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