Agra’s evening, from the top floor.
Six floors above the traffic on MG Road 2: open sky, a tandoor lit since five, and four hundred years of the city underneath.
How it started
It began as a roof nobody was using.
The top of the building was flat, empty and hot all afternoon — the kind of space every Agra rooftop is before somebody decides otherwise. What it had was the one thing no ground-floor room in this city has: air, and a horizon.
So we built for the evening rather than the afternoon. Lamps low along the parapet, tables far enough apart to talk across, and a kitchen put where the smoke would carry away from the seating rather than into it. Nothing opens before one in the afternoon, because that is not what the roof is for.
The name came last, and it was the obvious one. You have to go up to get here.
What we cook
Five kitchens, one pass.
A rooftop menu in India has to do several jobs at once. The table that wants seekh kebab and rumali roti is sitting next to the table that wants a margherita, and the table after that has come for chilli paneer and a Virgin Mojito. So we run five separate cooking lines behind one pass, and every one of them is somebody’s specialty rather than an afterthought.
It is why the menu is long — 225 dishes across 15 sections — and why we would rather you ordered across it than stayed in one corner. The tandoor and the wok are both worth your evening.
Everything is cooked to order. Nothing sits under a lamp waiting for a delivery rider, which is also why we would rather quote you an honest forty minutes than a hopeful twenty.
Behind the pass
- The tandoorCharcoal, lit at five. Kebabs, tikkas, and every bread that comes to the table.
- The Indian rangeMughlai gravies and dum biryani — the slow half of the kitchen.
- The Chinese wokIts own burner, hot enough to be worth it. Noodles, chilli, hakka.
- The pizza ovenThin base, blistered edge. Also where the garlic bread comes from.
- The cold barMojitos, iced teas, lemonades, shakes and frappes. Nothing from a bottle of syrup.
The view
The part of the meal we don't charge for.
Agra empties its light slowly. The sun goes behind the low roofs to the west, the street lamps on MG Road 2 come up one row at a time, and for about twenty minutes the whole city is the colour of weak tea. That happens every single evening and it is free.
We hold the terrace tables for people who book them, because on a Friday they go by eight. If you want to sit under the sky, say so when you book — choose Rooftop and we only confirm if a terrace table is genuinely free, rather than seating you inside and apologising later.
Inside, there is an air-conditioned room for the two months of the year when the roof is not the right idea, and a private corner that seats up to twenty for the evenings that are somebody’s.
You come for the food. You stay because nobody wants to be the one who suggests going downstairs.
Look around
Stand on the terrace for a minute
Drag to turn, or use the arrow keys. Tap a marker to read what you are looking at — the bar, the grill, the seating along the parapet.
Loading the terrace…
The place
A look around before you come up
Tap any panel to open it larger; the arrow keys move between them.
Altitude by the numbers
- 225
- dishes on the menu
- 15
- sections to work through
- 4.4
- average rating
- 7
- days a week, open
From ₹20 to ₹830
Tandoor to frappes
Across 450+ reviews
1:00 PM to 11:30 PM
Come up
The coals are lit. The lift is on your right.
Order it to your door, or take the table by the parapet. Ordering here costs us nothing in commission, so the saving comes back to you either way.
Open seven days, 1:00 PM to 11:30 PM. Last orders 11:00 PM.