Hunza travel guide

Walnut cake

Hunza's famous dense, moist cake made from freshly shelled local walnuts and apricot oil; sold at guesthouses and small bakeries along the Karakoram Highway; each slice tastes of the specific valley's harvest and nothing else

Apricots

Hunza's apricots grow in arguably the world's most dramatic terraced orchards; sun-dried on flat rooftops for weeks, they develop an intense concentrated sweetness; the apricot oil pressed here is a rare export and prized for cooking

Chapshuro (meat pie)

Hunzai filled flatbread—minced lamb with wild mountain garlic and fresh herbs stuffed into bread dough then cooked on a griddle stone; the local equivalent of a savory pie; best eaten scorching hot from a Karimabad restaurant kitchen

Hunza tea

A warming local preparation—not standard chai—sometimes made with dried apricots, rock salt and milk; offered by guesthouses as welcome tea and part of Hunzai hospitality; distinctly nourishing at 2,500m altitude