I heard about Dylan’s long before I ever got to Manali.

As a friend waited to board his bus for the famed mountain town, he called out in lieu of goodbye: “When you get to Manali, find me at Dylan’s.” “What’s that?” I yelled back. “It’s the coffeeshop that everyone goes to,” came the reply from his retreating bus. I didn’t make it to Dylan’s on my first day in Manali but on my second I met two sweet Israeli girls. They had specifically planned to be in Manali on that day so that they could break a religious fast with a very special food – Dylan’s tomato soup.

When I overheard a group of tourists raving about the warm chocolate chip cookies at the coffeehouse I knew I had to go there – pronto.
Dylan’s Toasted and Roasted Coffeehouse serves up much more than lovely lattes and comforting cappuccinos. It is owner Raj ‘Dylan’ Nalwa’s opinion that “a place can have good coffee but no spirit,” so he tries to imbue his shops – he has another in Arambol, Goa – with lots of good vibes. The waiters are always smiling, customers can sit and chat as long as they want and can watch movies in the back room.

A bit of a coffee philosopher, Nalwa said, “the environment that you create is the spirit that you create. It’s the coffee but it’s not just the coffee; it’s your relationship with people that matters.”

While that may be true, the goods on offer are fantastic. It’s not just the way-above-the-bar coffee drinks that keep the open, roadside coffeeshop busy; it’s also the specialties that Nalwa has created that keep people returning to Dylan’s everyday.

In addition to the coffeehouse standards of drip filter coffee, Italian, Turkish and French-press styles are on offer alongside Americanos, macchiatos, afogatos and the “depth charger” – a filter coffee served with a shot of espresso.

Dylan’s also serves shakes, juices, toast with homemade jam, eggs, sandwiches, salads and soups as well as a sinful selection of homemade desserts.
The must-tries at Dylan’s include: homemade tomato soup served with a giant hunk of brown-bread toast, this soups manages to taste both indulgent and healthy; chocolate chai, this drink was invented by Nalwa and puts a rich, desi-spin on traditional mochas or hot chocolates and, possibly, the country’s most famous chocolate chip cookies.

The cookies are always served fresh- you have to wait about 10 minutes for your cookie since they are baked-to-order and served warm on napkins. Nalwa has even had visitors order as many as 400 cookies to bring to friends and family in Delhi and Mumbai – that’s how loved these cookies are. There have been a few days when he had to shut down the cookie ovens to the public just to fill these orders.

The widespread love of these cookies has led to other additions to the Dylan’s menu. The chocolate-chip cookie shake is a vanilla milkshake with a cookie blended into it. Dylan’s version of the famed backpacker dessert “Hello to the Queen” features a layer of crumbled warm chocolate chip cookies at the bottom instead of the conventional digestives. Vanilla Sky features your choice of warm cookies or raw cookie dough under a cloud of vanilla ice cream.

At Dylan’s, the tiny tables and bench seating makes getting close to your neighbors a necessity and no one seems to mind. On the contrary, people seem happy to shift down to make room for newcomers at even the busiest of times, proving that, just as they say around Old Manali, everyone smiles at Dylan's.