Aunty Athanu's kitchen is now the whole city's kitchen

Aunty Athanu never wanted a restaurant. "Too much rent, too many managers," she laughs. But she has always cooked — smoked pork with bamboo shoot, axone chutneys, sticky rice steamed in leaves. For thirty years, her neighbours in Kohima Village have shown up at her back door with a plate and cash in hand.

Her nephew registered her on KohimaTaxi & Delivery last October. He uploaded photos of her dishes on his phone. Within a week she had orders coming from PR Hill, from New Market, from the university campus twenty minutes away.

"I don't understand the app fully," she admits. "But the phone rings, my nephew tells me 'three pork, two rice,' I cook, the boy comes to pick up. It's like the neighbours multiplied."

She now caps orders at 40 plates a day so she can keep the quality. "When I stop enjoying the cooking, I'll stop. But for now — the whole city is my neighbour."