At 3,656m Lhasa eats for altitude: yak butter churned into salted tea, barley roasted into tsampa, fatty broths and steamed momos. Three days trace it from the butter stalls of Tromsikhang to nun-run tea houses and the night grills of Tianhai.
The covered market north of Barkhor where Lhasa households buy yak butter by the kilo, pressed bricks of Pemagul black tea, air-dried yak jerky and sacks of roasted barley flour. Open roughly 08:00–19:30 daily; busiest before 11:00.
A family-run rooftop kitchen in a lane off Barkhor South Street serving steamed and fried yak momos, curried potato dumplings and thenthuk hand-pulled noodle soup. Lunch service from 12:00; reserve ahead as there are barely a dozen tables.
The courtyard tea house inside a working nunnery southeast of the Jokhang, run by the nuns themselves. Sweet milk tea arrives by the thermos, alongside Tibetan noodles with minced yak. Pilgrims, nuns and locals share long benches under an awning.
An old-city dining room east of the Barkhor circuit specialising in slow-cooked highland dishes: yak rib stew with radish, shredded yak tongue, tingmo steamed bread and churned butter tea poured tableside from a wooden dongmo churn.
A Beijing East Road institution since the 1980s, famous for bobi — a soft chapati you fill yourself with seasoned yak cheese, fried yak meat and spinach. Breakfast runs from 08:00 and the banana lassi is thick enough to stand a spoon in.
The ochre-yellow corner house on the southeast bend of the Barkhor, tied to a Sixth Dalai Lama love poem. Nepali-Tibetan menu of yak curry, momos and stone-pot mushroom soup, with a first-floor window over the pilgrim circuit.
Art-hung Tibetan café-bar on Beijing East Road pouring Lhasa Beer, barley chang and Tibetan sea-buckthorn juice, with dishes like yak curry and fried tingmo. Live Tibetan folk sets most evenings from around 20:30.
Grilled highland yak steak served on a hot stone plate, plus yak-bone broth hotpot and Tibetan dance performances between courses. The meat is leaner and darker than beef — order it no more than medium or it dries out.
Lhasa's loudest sweet tea hall on Danjielin Road: hundreds of locals, a thermos slammed on your table and coins left in a pile that the pourer takes from with each refill. Tibetan noodles and fried dough sticks come from the back kitchen.
Barrow vendors along the southern arc of the Barkhor slice laphing — chilled mung-bean jelly — into ribbons and dress it with chilli oil, garlic water and vinegar. Also sold here: yak-meat pastries and boiled potatoes rolled in chilli salt.
Backpacker roastery near Danjielin Road pouring espresso made with beans roasted in-house, plus yak-cheese cake and apple crumble. Walls of second-hand books and route notes for the Friendship Highway make it the trip-planning corner of the old city.
Lhasa's open-air night grill west of the old city: charcoal skewers of yak, lamb and mushrooms, crayfish woks, stir-fried noodles and crates of Lhasa Beer brewed with highland barley. Stalls fire up around 18:00 and run past midnight.