Before Taste Tibet (the cookbook!) came out in March, we thought we knew who our audience would be. We fancied ourselves a spread in the Guardian – they already know and love us, and Tibet is a story that turns liberal heads, after all.

In the event, it’s the tabloids that have come out for Taste Tibet so far. The Daily Star, the Daily Express, The People and the Sunday Mail (Scotland) have all gone big on the book, serialising our Famous Chicken Curry recipe, but also a number of veggie dishes including Yeshi’s Vegetable Thukpa (soup noodles). The Sun will be next up!

We love it when this happens. It happened back in lockdown too, when we started making deliveries to our customers’ houses. We may have thought we knew who our people were, but when we drove out to see them in their homes it turned out that they were every kind of person – rich and poor, the meat-hungry and the strictly vegan.

They say that you can’t be everything to everyone, but turns out that you can, in a way. In this respect we feel like we’ve accomplished at least one of our missions. When we started Taste Tibet back in 2014, Yeshi himself had been unemployed for many years, and his vision was to be able to feed people like himself – to make his wholesome, nutritious dishes affordable enough that they were available to all. From our pitch at Oxford’s outdoor market we did just this: our customers were Oxford’s professors and city workers, but also its students and many displaced people. We always offered food to the homeless as well. At our restaurant, it’s the same: elderly diners share tables with students or couples on their first date. At the end of the week we box up what we have left over and donate this to Oxford Mutual Aid.

And so it is now with the cookbook: we could never have dreamed that our recipes could be enjoyed by such a broad spectrum of people across the world! Tibetans are using it, especially second-generation Tibetans who need that extra guiding hand, but we’re also getting all kinds of people to cook Tibetan for the first time. Thank you to everyone who’s sharing their pictures and stories. We had no idea that we’d get this kind of feedback, and we’re loving it.

We are open this week all the usual hours, as follows:

Wednesday (today!): 5-9.30pm
Thursday-Saturday: 12-3 / 5-9.30pm

Join us for indoor and outdoor dining or to take away. Our menu for the week is now live.

This Sunday we are also running an online momo-making class with Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street. It’s at 6pm UK time and we’re offering 15% off to everyone who’d like to join us with the code MAKEMOMOS.

Looking forward to seeing you soon!

Julie and Yeshi

• Other things to click on:
• Are you in London? We’ll be at the China Exchange in Gerrard Street on Tuesday, May 17th talking about our experience of opening a restaurant during the pandemic, perfecting our food research and writing, and shaping the understanding of Tibetan food culture in the UK.
• Did you see that Time Out has named Taste Tibet its no. 1 restaurant in Oxford right now?
• Please vote for us in the Observer Food Monthly Awards! You can nominate Taste Tibet in the Best New Cookbook and Best Cheap Eats categories. Best Social Media too while you’re at it! This will only take a second and will make the biggest difference to us (and maybe – finally – that spread in the Guardian, who knows…). Thank you!
• If you’ve enjoyed Taste Tibet the cookbook, please consider leaving us a review ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️