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What Jaipur kitchens declared, October 2026
Eleven kitchens, seventeen questions each, answered in their own words. The oil, the dairy, the sweeteners, the freezer and whether you can see the kitchen, counted kitchen by kitchen.
By Vidit Jain and Milind Raj, foundersAs declared
Nine Jaipur kitchens told us which oil they cook in, and five said olive. Ten told us whether we could see the kitchen, and five said no. That honesty is the point: every restaurant on Harkara answers the same 17 questions in its own words, the answers sit on its menu next to the dishes, and a skipped question shows nothing. Eleven kitchens are live today; nine have answered all or nearly all, two are still filling theirs in, so the counts below are of kitchens that answered.
A snapshot taken on 9 October 2026. The live counts, which change as kitchens join and answer, are on the cooking oil, sweeteners, dairy, kitchen view and freezer guides.
Oil
Nine kitchens answered. Five cook in olive oil (four say olive oil, Ciro Co says extra virgin). Tap The Roots cooks in cold-pressed groundnut oil. Oree Coffee & Kitchen says no palm oil. Stack'D says refined rice bran oil. Ratio says it is a no-oil kitchen.
Asked whether they reuse frying oil, eight answered: four say the oil is used once, one discards it daily, one filters and reuses it for up to two days, one for up to a week, and Ratio has no frying oil to reuse.
Sweeteners
Nine answered. Three sweeten with monk fruit. Two use honey only. One uses honey, dates and condensed milk; one adds no refined sugar in-house; one uses jaggery and white sugar; Ciro Co lists honey, dates, jaggery and refined sugar.
Dairy
Nine answered. Six buy branded packaged dairy (Amul, Mother Dairy and the like). Tap The Roots says organic certified dairy; Ratio says direct from a farm; Stack'D says a local loose vendor.
Can you see the kitchen?
Ten answered, and five said closed kitchen. Two are semi-open, two are open (Ciro Co and Ratio), and Tap The Roots offers a kitchen tour on request.
The freezer
Eight answered. Six keep a minimal freezer (peas, corn, fries and the like). Stack'D freezes essentials. Ratio says zero freezer, everything fresh daily.
The rest of the seventeen
| Question | Kitchens answered | What they said |
|---|---|---|
| Which flour? | 8 | whole wheat only 2 · 00 pizza flour, wheat and maida 2 · gluten-free options 2 · wheat and maida mix 1 · 00 flour and khapli atta 1 |
| Where are the vegetables from? | 9 | the morning mandi 4 · hydroponic greens 2 · organic greens plus mandi 2 · an organic certified farm 1 |
| Meat? | 11 | ten kitchens serve no meat at all; Cafe LazyMojo says halal certified |
| Spices? | 9 | light seasoning 3 · in-house blends 3 · house-made masalas 1 · whole spices ground in-house 1 · premium packaged 1 |
| Which salt? | 10 | standard iodised 4 · a mix of rock, pink, sea and iodised 3 · sea, rock and packaged 1 · Himalayan pink 1 · sea salt 1 |
| Food colour? | 9 | no food colours added 5 · no artificial colours 4 |
| Water? | 10 | commercial RO under 150 TDS 9 · under 100 TDS 1 |
| Cookware? | 9 | non-toxic cookware 4 · stainless steel 2 · iron and stainless 2 · non-stick 1 |
| Staff hygiene? | 9 | hairnets and gloves 4 · hairnet and apron 2 · hairnets, gloves and masks 1 · uniforms and aprons 1 · bandana, apron, uniform and gloves 1 |
| Pest control? | 10 | bi-monthly certified 3 · weekly 3 · as needed 3 · thrice a week 1 |
| How is produce washed? | 8 | running water and a salt wash 5 · tap wash only 2 · baking soda wash 1 |
A closed kitchen is not a worse kitchen, and refined oil is not a confession.
None of this is a ranking. What is new is that the answer exists, in public, under the restaurant's own name, next to the food. We do not test oil or inspect kitchens; we show what each kitchen declared and never fill in a blank.
Across the same eleven menus, 281 dishes are estimated at 20 g of protein or more per serving, and 54 are marked vegan by the restaurants' own menus. The menu behind every number is on Restaurants in Jaipur.
Where the numbers come from. Kitchen answers are each restaurant's own, shown as declared; Harkara does not test or inspect. Calories and macros are our estimates per serving, not lab values. How we know explains each kind of fact.
The live versions
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