Islamabad eats like a crossroads: Peshawari karahi and chapli kebab from the west, Kashmiri and Punjabi cooking from the east, plus Afghan bakeries. Add Rawalpindi's 19th-century bazaars 20 minutes south and you have three days of serious eating.
Islamabad's oldest market (built with the city in the 1960s) in Sector G-6. Morning stalls stack Swat peaches, Chitrali apples and Multani mangoes; dry-fruit shops sell Afghan almonds, pine nuts (chilghoza) and dried apricots by the kilo.
One of the Afghan kitchens along Jinnah Avenue serving Kabuli pulao — long-grain rice with lamb shank, caraway, shredded carrot and raisins — plus mantu dumplings and bolani flatbread from a tandoor at the front.
A tarpaulin city of farm produce, spice sellers and pickle vendors that runs Fridays and Sundays in Sector H-9. Whole-spice traders grind garam masala to order; separate lanes sell achar, desi ghee in tins and fresh chaat.
The café that made doodh patti respectable in Islamabad. Kashmiri pink chai with crushed pistachio, karak chai in clay kulhars and paratha rolls, served on a terrace under old trees in F-6's shopping arcade.
Friday and Sunday mornings the G-9 Markaz halwa-puri counters fry puffed puris to order, served with chana masala, aloo curry and orange sooji halwa. Queues form from 8am and most stalls sell out before noon.
The trailhead kiosks below Pir Sohawa Road sell salted corn on the cob, roasted chickpeas and sugarcane juice pressed on the spot. Locals buy here before walking up, with the Potohar plain spread out behind them.
The Murree Road approach through Bhara Kahu is lined with Peshawari kebab houses griddling chapli kebab — minced beef with tomato, pomegranate seed and coriander — in shallow pans of beef fat, served with naan straight off the tandoor.
An Islamabad institution serving one thing: chicken pulao with a raita and a shami kebab, ladled from vast degs and eaten at communal tables. Turnover is so fast the rice never sits, and the queue moves in minutes.
Twenty minutes south in Rawalpindi's oldest commercial quarter, nihari shops start serving slow-cooked beef shank stew at dawn with kulcha bread, ginger julienne and green chilli. Most kitchens close their pots by 11am.
Narrow 19th-century lanes off Raja Bazaar packed with whole-spice wholesalers, tea traders blending Kenyan and Sri Lankan leaf for karak chai, and shops selling gur (jaggery) blocks and rock salt from the Salt Range.
Melody's evening food park runs on fried snacks: dahi bhallay in sweet-sour chutney, fruit chaat, gol gappay filled with tamarind water, and pakoras by the plate. Stalls fire up mid-afternoon and run past midnight.
F-10's markaz is Islamabad's late-night grill strip — mutton karahi cooked in wok-shaped pans with tomato and green chilli, seekh kebab and malai boti off charcoal, with charpoy seating spilling onto the pavement.