A Cookout Legacy: Himanshu Rathore & Pratap Bhawan Cuisine
- Urvashi Singh
- 4 days ago
- 6 min read
Most restaurants first establish a location, create a space, and then work towards building a reputation around their food. In the case of Pratap Bhawan Cuisine, things worked in reverse order. The husband-wife duo, Thakur Himanshu Rathore and Thakurani Deepti Kumariji, began cooking from a home kitchen and delivering orders. Their commitment to the art earned them a reputation, and their consistency created a brand that became a trailblazer in its own right.
Rajputana Collective is delighted to feature the story of Pratap Bhawan Cuisine, as told by its founder, Thakur Himanshu Rathore himself.
OFF TO AN EARLY START
Nimaj’s Thakur Himanshu Rathore was a 12-year-old when he experienced his life's first cooking session. His maternal grandfather or nanosa, Janak Singhji was a meat aficionado and had decided to introduce him to the world of cookouts.
But the weather outside puzzled the young boy.
“How are we going to barbecue when it is raining?” he wondered.
His grandfather got this small problem out of the way and organised an indoor barbecue. Nanosa had marinated some chicken in spices and kachri, which he placed on the barbecue.
The characteristic aroma of kachri murgh engulfed the duo, and a core memory unlocked in the child’s mind. “As a young boy, watching smoke and heat transform something inside an ordinary kitchen seemed almost magical. I was fascinated by the entire process: preparing the meat, mixing the marinades, managing the fire and understanding how a few simple ingredients could produce such wonderful flavours.”, he recalls. And just like that, Himanshu Rathore had experienced his first cooking lesson. “Cooking was very much a part of my childhood, although at that age I never imagined that one day it would become such an important part of my life”, he adds.
During his years as a student in Mayo College, Ajmer, Himanshu Rathore became the designated cook of his friends’ circle, and this continued through his college days as well.
Then, as a part of his career as a naturalist, he was deputed to the forests of central India. It is here that Himanshu Rathore’s horizons expanded.
Looking back, he explains, “Living and traveling in the field exposed me to local ingredients, rustic cooking techniques and regional dishes that were very different from what I had grown up eating in Rajasthan”. After several years in central India, Himanshu Rathore returned to Jaipur and launched his homestay, Pratap Bhawan.
It is well known that in the hospitality industry, culinary elements are central to most guests’ experiences.
With the encouragement of his wife Deepti Kumariji, Himanshu Rathore began serving them his family’s signature entrees and even led cooking classes for some of his guests. Together, the duo realised that as invested as people might be in the food being served to them, they were deeply intrigued by the stories behind these dishes. It is their personal involvement and investment in every culinary experience that has made all the difference.
THE DEFINING MOMENT
Life continued to pass by, until a significant point in time.
It was 2017, when Himanshu Rathore and his wife, Deepti Kumariji were invited to showcase their family’s culinary heritage at the Belgian Embassy. The event, titled Dine with Royalty, offered them a distinctive platform where the delicacies from their family’s repertoire were received with tremendous appreciation. This showcase marked a defining moment in Himanshu Rathore’s journey, and the food connoisseur began to take an entrepreneurial shape.
In his own words, “Until then, cooking had largely been something very personal for me—food I had grown up with, cooked for family, friends and guests at Pratap Bhawan. But that experience made us realise that there was a much wider appreciation for authentic family recipes and the kind of food we had always taken for granted at home. In many ways, it was one of the first occasions that pointed us seriously in a culinary direction and planted the seed for what would eventually become Pratap Bhawan Cuisine”.
Pratap Bhawan Cuisine is Himanshu Rathore and Deepti Kumariji’s joint initiative of extending their family’s culinary heritage to the world. By bringing ancestral recipes and making cooking legacies come alive in their kitchen, the duo has made lasting imprints in the Pink City.
THE DEFINING YEAR
Himanshu Rathore traces the venture’s birth as having taken place during the COVID lockdown. When the world had come to a crippling halt, he ruminated to himself: “There was suddenly no tourist movement, I had no wildlife tours to lead, and no guests were coming into Pratap Bhawan. Instead of sitting idle, I thought, why not open our kitchen to the people of Jaipur?”
He decided to make a simple start by offering entrees that he was certain of having mastered to a fair extent. It was mostly kebabs and meat pickles to begin with, but when clients began to recognise and appreciate what was being offered, Himanshu Rathore expanded the menu. Thereafter, laal maans and other home recipes began to make way into Pratap Bhawan Cuisine’s menu, such as khadh murgh, jungli maans and laal maas. Pratap Bhawan Cuisine gained organic popularity by word of mouth, and rather rapidly so.
From one client and one dish at a time, Himanshu Rathore was hosting eminent food bloggers and celebrity chefs, whose kind appreciations helped amplify the new brand even further to audiences. Out of his nostalgia for his alma mater, Himanshu Rathore introduced kathi rolls, which were a hit amongst Mayoites.
Since Pratap Bhawan Cuisine is a venture that Himanshu Rathore pivoted into, it offered its fair set of challenges. One, it started in a simple home kitchen, and two, high-quality meat was challenging to source during the lockdown. Himanshu Rathore also mentions that for a home-style kitchen, it wasn’t easy to fulfil a wide gamut of orders that would land up all at once. But as he rightly adds, “Those were hectic days, but also some of the most memorable ones because everything was extremely hands-on. In retrospect, I am glad we began the way we did. The food and its reputation came first; the infrastructure followed later. It taught us that no amount of equipment can substitute for consistency, hard work, and attention to what is actually leaving the kitchen”.
SCALING UP
In order to meet the growing demand, Himanshu Rathore built a larger commercial kitchen in 2022. Operations have been smoother since then. Even though the machine is well oiled now, Himanshu Rathore mentions the very experience that keeps his cooking passion alive: “I genuinely enjoy cooking, and to me every dish presents its own challenge. Even when you have cooked something hundreds of times, the meat, the weather, the fire or the ingredients can behave differently. That keeps cooking interesting”. At Pratap Bhawan Cuisine, the founders ensure that the recipes are followed and not meddled with for the sake of being trendy. That the art of cooking is kept simple is honoured for the way it was passed down the generations, for trends come and go, but authenticity is forever relevant.
BIGGER PLANS AHEAD
The founders do agree upon their venture having reached a certain stage of expansion. By this, they mean to create a physical destination, a high-end restaurant with 50-60 covers in Jaipur itself. Himanshu Rathore is clear about not diluting the essence of Pratap Bhawan Cuisine via generic expansions, but rather, to open a distinct dining destination where people can come and enjoy the home-style delicacies that made the brand come alive in the first place.
Personalised service, honest flavours and soulful food remain at their core commitments. “So, for me, the next chapter is not expansion simply for the sake of becoming bigger. It is about giving the reputation that Pratap Bhawan Cuisine has already earned a home worthy of it. The food would remain at the centre of everything. There would be dishes from our family repertoire, recipes that I have developed over the years, live-fire and sigri cooking, seasonal ingredients and lesser-known preparations from Rajasthan and the regions that have influenced me”, Himanshu Rathore concludes.
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