Chef-owner Dhanbahadur Chhetri has opened Mountain Valley Restaurant at 212 Main Street in Winooski. It’s the latest in a series of Indian/Nepali/Indo-Chinese restaurants that the small yellow-clapboard building has hosted — most recently, Friend’s Nepali Restaurant, which closed in early 2022, Chhetri said.
Chhetri, 43, bought the business in late June and spent five weeks painting and cleaning the space and installing new equipment, including a tandoor oven, before opening on August 11.
Mountain Valley’s menu includes dishes common at other Himalayan restaurants in the area, such as the dumplings called momos, thukpa noodle soup, Indian-style meat or vegetable curries, and breads. Chhetri said he plans to add South Indian dosas, crêpe-like thin pancakes made from a fermented rice and lentil batter.
Chhetri has worked as a professional cook since he moved to the U.S. in 2016 from Nepal, he said. After cooking in New Jersey, New York, Wisconsin and Philadelphia, he came to Vermont in March 2019 to work as the chef at Everest Indian-Nepali Restaurant in South Burlington. He has also cooked at Red Panda on lower Church Street.
After taking a break from cooking to work for two years in manufacturing, he decided to return to the restaurant business. “I have a skill,” Chhetri said. “I said, ‘Let’s try to open my own business, but not too big.'”
This article appears in Aug 31 – Sep 6, 2022.
Got something to say?
Send a letter to the editor and we'll publish your feedback in print!
