Our Story
The Nafees Story
One brick oven, three generations, and a valley's worth of recipes — scroll to walk through it with us.
A single brick oven in Muzaffarabad's Main Bazaar, lit before dawn by our founder to bake bread for the neighbourhood.
There was no shop sign, no menu — just a counter, a stack of warm loaves, and a queue that started before sunrise. Word spread not through advertising but through breakfast tables across the old city. Within two years, the "loaf-and-bun counter" had a name: Nafees, meaning fine, exquisite — a quiet promise about what would come out of that oven every morning.
The founder's children take over the counter, and the bakery's first cake recipes are written down for the first time.
Until then, every recipe lived in someone's head — measured in handfuls, not grams. As the second generation stepped in, they began writing it all down: the sponge ratios, the proofing times, the exact way rosewater should be folded, not poured. It was the first time Nafees had anything resembling a recipe book, and it's still the foundation every baker trains on today.
A second bakery opens in Mirpur — the first time Nafees bread leaves the old city.
Opening outside Muzaffarabad felt like a risk — could an oven's temperament really travel? The Mirpur team trained for six months at the original bakery before a single tray went in their own oven. It worked. Mirpur became proof that the recipes weren't tied to one building; they were tied to how carefully they were followed.
New ovens, proper cold storage, and a real pastry kitchen — but not one recipe changed.
By 2015, Nafees could finally afford the equipment it had been dreaming of for thirty years. The family was firm about one thing: better tools, never different recipes. The new kitchen made consistency easier, not the flavours different — the rose cake baked in 2015 tastes exactly like the one baked in 1998, just with fewer inconsistencies between batches.
Nafees is named Best Bakery in Azad Jammu & Kashmir — the first formal recognition after four decades of quiet baking.
No one at Nafees set out to win awards — the goal was always just the next good batch. But being named the region's best bakery meant something: forty years of showing up before sunrise had been noticed. The family still keeps the trophy on a shelf in the original Muzaffarabad shop, not the newer flagship.
From Muzaffarabad to Kotli, still run by the same family, still closing the ovens the moment a batch is ready — not before.
Today Nafees bakes across eight locations in Azad Kashmir, but the third generation still visits the original Main Bazaar oven every week. It's less a check-in and more a reminder — of where the standard was set, and why it was never meant to change.
A bakery is only as good as what it refuses to rush.
— The Nafees FamilyFour decades in every bite
Since 1985, one family, one standard.
From Muzaffarabad to Kotli.
Audited twice a year, every year.
Same recipes, same ovens' spirit.
Words from our customers
Forty-one years of birthdays, weddings, and Eid tables — here's what people tell us.
The wedding cake was better than the pictures we sent them. Every tier was a different flavour and not one guest left a slice behind.
Their mithai tastes like my grandmother's — which is the highest compliment I can give. We only order Nafees for Eid now.
Ordered a custom flavour cake with two days' notice for a birthday and they still pulled it off beautifully. Genuinely impressive kitchen.
Delivery outside Mirpur was smooth and the cake arrived in perfect condition. Nice touch that everything is Halal certified too.