CASSETTE KITCHEN & LOUNGE

At Chapter Lakeside the menus draw on Kokborok and Mui Borok cooking — the food of Tripura, done with river fish, bamboo shoots, banana flower, and the herbs and botanicals of the state. It is the place, cooked. Alongside it, the things an all-day kitchen should do well: warm pastries at nine, a lunch that goes on, a dinner that runs into something else. Vegetarian and non-vegetarian options throughout.

The kitchen takes the season seriously. Itself, less so.

At 18:50 the light goes gold and the music comes up. By the second night the bartender knows your drink. At 00:20 the bar stops asking what time it is, because we took the clock down. Tripura's craft beverage culture shows up in the glass at Lakeside; the house rule everywhere is that if you can see the bottom of yours, somebody isn't doing their job.