Founder & Owner
Anisha Gurung
Opened the first twelve-seat counter in 2013 and still tastes the jhol broth every morning.
Get to know us
About Food House
A family-run kitchen serving hand-folded momos and honest Asian comfort food to three American neighborhoods.
Who we are
A neighborhood kitchen that happens to make very good momos.
Food House is a family-run restaurant serving Himalayan and Asian comfort food to three American neighborhoods. We opened in 2013 with twelve seats and one steamer. Today we serve thousands of guests a week and still fold every single momo by hand.
What we do is not complicated. We buy good ingredients, we cook them properly, and we treat the people who walk through our door the way we would want to be treated somewhere far from home. That is the whole business plan, and thirteen years in, it is still working.
You will find us busy at lunch with office regulars, quiet in the mid-afternoon, and full of families by seven. We like it that way.
13
Years serving guests
3
Restaurant locations
55+
Dishes on the menu
4.8
Average rating
What drives us
Mission, Philosophy & Promise
Three things we wrote down in year one and have not needed to change since.
01
Our Mission
To make the kind of food people drive across town for, and to serve it in a room where nobody feels rushed, overcharged or overlooked.
02
Our Philosophy
Cook it the way it is cooked at home. Season it properly. Do not chase trends. If a dish is not better than it was last year, we work on it until it is.
03
Our Promise
If something leaves our kitchen that we would not serve our own family, tell us. We will remake it, take it off the check, and fix why it happened.
Quality ingredients
We shop small, and we shop often.
Produce arrives six mornings a week from local suppliers, not once a week on a pallet. Our chicken is free-range, our beef is hand-cut in house, and our aromatics — the ginger, garlic, cilantro and chili that carry almost every dish we make — are prepped the same day they are used.
- Six deliveries a week from regional suppliers
- Free-range chicken and hand-cut beef
- House-made sauces, achars and spice blends
- No frozen dumplings and no pre-made wrappers, ever
Fresh preparation
Everything starts at six in the morning.
Before the lights come on in the dining room, three people are already at the folding table. Dough is rolled, fillings are mixed and seasoned, broth goes on the stove for its four-hour simmer. By the time we open at eleven, roughly 1,200 momos are pleated and waiting.
It is slow, unglamorous work and it is the entire reason our food tastes the way it does. It is also why we occasionally sell out of a particular momo on a busy Saturday — we would rather run out than serve you something we made yesterday.
Read the full story
Hospitality
The food gets you in the door. The people bring you back.
We train our team on one idea above all others: notice people. Notice the guest who is in a hurry, the table celebrating something, the kid who will not eat anything green. Everything else is detail.
Join Our TeamFamily Friendly
High chairs, smaller portions and staff who genuinely do not mind a loud table.
Honest Guidance
Ask us what is best tonight and you will get a real answer, not the priciest plate.
Allergy Aware
Tell us once and the whole line knows. We take it seriously, every service.
Rooted Locally
We hire from the neighborhood and cater the school fundraisers. This is home.
The people
Meet the Team Behind the Steamer
A small crew who have mostly worked together for years.
Head Chef
Tenzin Sherpa
Trained in Pokhara and Queens. Runs the wok line and guards the momo recipe like family silver.
General Manager
Marcus Reid
Fifteen years in New York hospitality. Knows about half our regulars by their usual order.
Head of Momo Prep
Sunita Rai
Leads the 6 AM folding team. Can pleat a momo in under nine seconds, and often does.
This is a demonstration website. Team members, biographies and photography shown here are sample content created for design purposes and do not represent real individuals.
See for yourself
Fifty-five dishes. One very busy steamer.
Browse the full menu, from hand-folded momos and wok-fired noodles to soups, sides and sweet momos for dessert.
Ready when you are
Come Eat With Us
Reserve a table, or let us bring dinner to you. Either way, the steamers are already running.
