Planning an anniversary dinner in Agra

An anniversary dinner in Agra usually goes wrong in one of two ways, and neither of them is the food. Either it is booked for eight-thirty on a Saturday, which is the loudest hour of the loudest night anywhere in the city; or nobody tells the restaurant what the evening is, so it is served exactly like the table of six next to it.

Both are avoidable, and avoiding them costs nothing. Here is how we would plan it — the timing first, because it matters more than the venue, then the seat, then the food, then the bill.

Pick the hour before you pick the place

The single best decision you can make is to book earlier than you think you should. A rooftop between about six and seven in the evening is a different restaurant from the same rooftop at nine: the light is going, the tables are half empty, the staff have time for you and you can hear each other. By nine on a Friday every seat is full and the room has a hum that is lovely for a birthday and wrong for two people.

Agra empties its light slowly. The sun drops behind the low roofs to the west, the street lamps come up one row at a time, and for about twenty minutes the whole city is the colour of weak tea. If you want that — and it is the best free thing on the menu — book for around six or seven, and let dinner run into the dark rather than starting in it.

Ask for the seat, not just the table

Most rooftop restaurants have more than one kind of seat, and the difference between them is the difference between the evening you imagined and the evening you got. Ours has three: the open terrace, an air-conditioned room, and a private corner off the main roof.

• The parapet, on the terrace. What you want for an anniversary. Tables along the edge, the city underneath, and enough space between them to talk across one without an audience. Pick Rooftop on the form and we only confirm if a terrace table is genuinely free.
• The indoor room. Air-conditioned, 40 seats, same kitchen. Right for May and June, right for the fortnight of monsoon that always lands on the evening you booked.
• The private corner. Seats 20 and closes off from the rest of the roof. Overkill for two — but it is the answer when the anniversary is somebody’s parents’ and thirty people are coming.

One thing worth saying plainly, because every visitor to this city wonders: we do not sell a Taj Mahal view and you should not book expecting one. The monument is about six kilometres east of us. What our roof has is Agra itself — Shahganj going about its evening, MG Road lit up below, and open sky in every direction. That is worth the lift ride on its own, and we would rather say so now than have you spend the first ten minutes looking for something.

Order it as one meal, not two

Two people ordering a starter each, a main each and a bread each end up with six plates and no shape. The evenings that work are ordered like one meal with a middle to it.

Something to start, off the coals

One tandoor plate between two, not two. The Paneer Tikka Twins (₹440) or the Malai Chicken Tikka (₹590) both arrive smoking and take twenty minutes to get through properly. If you want the theatrical version, Sharabi Chicken (₹610) is cooked with a splash of alcohol and set alight on the way to the table — silly, and it works every time.

One main, one bread, one rice

Altitude Pahadi Chicken (₹630) is the chef’s own — a green gravy of mint, coriander and yogurt, and the dish we would send out if we only got one. On the vegetarian side, Malai Kofta (₹470) or Paneer Khada Masala (₹470). Add a butter naan (₹90), a plate of jeera rice (₹260), and stop there. The temptation is always one dish more than the table needs.

Something long and cold

There is no bar list here — the drinks are all mocktails, and the cold bar does the work instead: a Virgin Mojito (₹160), a Kala Khatta Virgin (₹180) if you grew up on it, or the Saffron Frappe (₹170), which is the one nobody expects to like as much as they do. Between 5 and 7 in the evening every mocktail is 30% off — which is another argument for the earlier booking.

Dessert, which is the point

Gulab Jamun with Ice Cream (₹180) is the correct answer and we will not be arguing about it. The Gulab Jamun Shake (₹250) is the same idea in a glass, for people who want dessert but have already eaten too much.

Tell us what the evening is

This is the whole thing, and it takes one line on the booking form. Choose Anniversary as the occasion and add a note, and the evening is handled differently — the table is set before you arrive rather than while you stand there, the courses are paced instead of stacked, and nobody brings the bill while you are still talking.

If you are bringing a cake, bring it. We do not charge cakeage — hand it over at the door, tell us when you want it, and it comes out then rather than whenever it is remembered. If it is a surprise, say so in the note and it arrives after the mains rather than the moment you sit down.

What it comes to

Two people ordering the meal above — one tandoor plate, one main, a bread, a rice, two mocktails and one dessert to share — comes to about ₹1,900 before tax, so a little over ₹2,000 with GST at 5%. There is no service charge and no cover charge on this site or in the restaurant; what you order is what you pay for.

If there are four or more of you, the code TABLE20 takes 20% off the food bill, up to ₹800 — it is on the offers page with everything else. And if the anniversary belongs to a bigger group, the anniversary page has the seat counts and a worked bill for a party.

The short version

1. Book for six or seven, not half past eight.
2. Ask for the terrace by name, and have an indoor plan for June and August.
3. Order one shared starter, one main, one bread, one rice. Stop there.
4. Say what the evening is on the form. It is the only step that changes anything.
5. Bring the cake. It costs nothing to cut it here.

We are on the top floor above MG Road, open every day from one in the afternoon. Book a table, or call +91 84451 00365 and somebody here will do it with you.