The Heera Singh Jeewan Singh Sweets & Snacks shopfront in golden evening light, seen through leaves

Est. 1805 · on record since 1887

हीरा सिंह जीवन सिंह

From the Hills of Almora
A Legacy of Taste

A lineage of craftsmanship.

Six names, one counter.

First generation

Bhavani Das & Ram Lal

Founded it, carried it on

The shop begins with Bhavani Das, a halwai in Lala Bazaar whose devotion to traditional confectionery started everything that followed. The family traces its origins to 1805; the records that survive begin in 1887. His son Ram Lal kept the craft exactly as devotedly as he had received it, and came back from a Badrinath pilgrimage with the sweet that would become Almora's Singori.

Second generation

Heera Singh

The first name over the door

The mantle passed to him, and with it the standard: flavour, purity and authenticity, not merely recipes. His name is still the first one on the board.

Archive photograph of an elder in a black cap seated cross-legged behind trays of mithai, red sweet boxes stacked behind him

Third generation

Jeewan Singh

The second name over the door

Father and son together on the signboard, and it has stayed that way since. By now the shop's Bal Mithai and Chocolate were not simply products. They were part of how the region recognised itself.

Jeewan Singh seated cross-legged at the counter among trays of sweets, gesturing as he talks to a customer, the shop name painted on the wall behind him

Fourth generation

Navneet Singh

Renewed the craft

Son of Jeewan Singh. He brought new vision without trading away the tradition, and reworked Khechuwa, the sweet Almora calls Kichu, into the version the town now takes as its own.

Navneet Singh in a dark maroon suit and glasses, seated in a wicker chair in a garden

Fifth generation

Gaurav Singh Bisht

The present chapter

Son of Navneet Singh, and fifteen years in advertising and brand building before he came to the counter. The authenticity stays rooted in Lala Bazaar; what is new is the presentation, along with a second branch at Talli Bamori, Haldwani.

Gaurav Singh Bisht in a maroon bandhgala jacket, smiling, standing at a red wooden console

Generations

139

Years on record

40+

Sweets made daily

Kumaon counters

Our Speciality

Bal Mithai

Roasted khoya fudge rolled in white sugar pearls. The sweet that earned Almora its name, and the first thing everyone in the hills asks for.

Singori

Khoya folded into a cone of maloo leaf. Second only to Bal Mithai here, and the leaf is half the flavour.

Chocolate

The other one the family has spent generations getting right. Cut thick, set dark, nothing borrowed from a bar.

Khechuwa

The sweet Almora calls Kichu. This shop reworked it into the version the town now takes as its own.

Peda

Khoya cooked down with sugar, shaped by hand and rolled in sugar crystals.

Goje

The Kumaoni sweet of Holi, baked until the tops catch and caramelise.

Pure Desi Ghee Sweet Range

Imarti

Cham Cham

Kaju Laddu

Khajoor

Jalebi

Biscoff Barfi

Mewa Bite

Anarkali

Plain Ghewar

Kesar Malai Ghewar

Ghewar

Nest Baklava

Pyramid Baklava

Square Baklava

Chocolate Bite

The original Almora Singori

Created at Lala Bazaar

Wrapped in maloo leaf

Singori

Wrapped in a maloo leaf.

सिंगौड़ी

Singori, made of khoya folded into cones of green maloo leaf, on a plate beside a Heera Singh Jeewan Singh gift box

It started somewhere else

Long before it was Almora's, an older sweet by the name was made in Tehri Garhwal, in a different style and a different form.

A pilgrimage, and a season behind a stranger's counter

Returning from Badrinath, Ram Lal Thakur Das took temporary work at a confectioner's shop and met the sweet in its older forms. He was already a halwai. He watched, adapted, refined.

What Almora changed

Home again, the changes were small and decisive. Khoya set in Almora's own climate, and the particular fragrance of maloo leaf around it. What came out was not an adaptation. It was a transformation.

Second only to Bal Mithai

Like a sapling nursed until it takes, the sweet became the region's own. Today it is one of the most sought-after sweets in Kumaon, second only to the Bal Mithai that made Almora famous.