How to pick a rooftop in Agra for a birthday

From about the middle of September, birthdays in Agra move upstairs. The evenings cool off, the roofs open, and every group of eight that has been eating in an air-conditioned box since April wants a table under the sky. By the middle of October the good ones are gone by Thursday for a Saturday.

What follows is not a ranking. We are not going to tell you that we are the best rooftop in Agra and then list four others underneath to look even-handed about it — we cannot verify another restaurant’s seat count, its cake policy or what it charges, and neither can the listicles that do it. What we can do is tell you what actually goes wrong at a rooftop birthday, because we have fixed most of it at one point or another, and give you the six questions worth asking whoever you book. Then we answer them for our own terrace, with real numbers, and you can hold anyone else to the same standard.

One: are they holding a specific table, or just a seat?

This is the question that decides the evening, and it is the one most bookings skip. “A table for ten at eight” and “the long table by the parapet at eight” are different promises. On a Friday in November the second one is worth having in writing.

Ask which area the booking is against. Most rooftop restaurants have more than one — the open terrace, an indoor room, sometimes a corner that can be closed off — and a party of twelve confirmed against “the restaurant” can end up in whichever of them still has chairs.

On our side: the booking form asks you to choose. Rooftop seats 60, the air-conditioned room seats 40, and the private corner seats 20. If you pick Rooftop, we only confirm when a terrace table is genuinely free — we would rather the form said no than seat you inside and apologise on the night. Choose Any and you get the quickest confirmation, which on a busy Saturday is often also the fastest table.

Two: what happens to the cake?

Somebody is going to arrive carrying a cake. It needs somewhere cold to sit for two hours, it needs to come out at the right moment rather than the moment it is remembered, and it needs candles, a knife and plates that nobody has to go and ask for.

The awkward part is the cakeage charge — a per-kilo fee some restaurants add for cutting a cake you brought. It is legal, it is usually disclosed somewhere, and it is a bad surprise on a bill at eleven at night. Ask. We do not charge cakeage. Bring the cake, hand it over when you arrive, and tell us when you want it — after the mains is the usual answer, and it is the right one if the birthday is a surprise.

Three: what is the plan if it rains, or if it is 44 degrees?

Agra has two seasons that a roof cannot argue with. May and June, when nothing outdoors is kind until well after dark, and the fortnight of monsoon that arrives on the one evening you booked. A rooftop with no answer to either is a rooftop with a two-thirds year.

So ask what happens. Is there an indoor room, and is it the same kitchen and the same menu, or is it the overflow nobody wants? Ours seats 40 with air conditioning, off the same pass, and it exists precisely for the weeks when the roof is the wrong idea. Between the two, we have somewhere to put you every night of the year.

Four: how long do you have the table?

A birthday runs long. People arrive late, the cake happens, somebody makes a speech nobody asked for. If a restaurant is turning tables twice on a Saturday, your two hours are two hours, and the polite hovering starts at ninety minutes.

Ask two things: when does the kitchen stop, and are they seating anybody after you. We are open every day from 1:00 PM to 11:30 PM, bookings run hourly from 1:00 PM to 10:00 PM, and the kitchen takes its last order at 11:00 PM. A table booked at eight is not being sold to anybody else that night. Book at nine and the cake and the last round of coffee still fit comfortably.

Five: what is it going to cost, and who decides?

Three numbers matter, and only one of them is the food. There is the menu price. There is whatever is added at the end — service charge, cover charge, cakeage. And there is whether you order à la carte on the night or agree a set price per head in advance.

For a table of eight or ten, à la carte is usually cheaper and always more fun, because everybody orders what they want. Past about fifteen it stops being fun: the kitchen cannot send thirty different dishes at once, the food arrives in waves, and half the table is eating while the other half watches. That is the point at which a set menu per head earns its place — the food comes together and the bill is known before anybody sits down.

We charge no service charge and no cover charge; GST at 5% is worked out on the bill and shown before you pay. A worked example of what a party of ten actually comes to, built from today’s menu prices, is on the birthday page. For anything above fifteen people, call and we will price it properly rather than guess at it here.

Six: can everybody actually get up there?

The unglamorous one, and the one that ruins an evening quietly. A rooftop reached by four flights of stairs is a rooftop your grandmother is not coming to. Parking that fills by eight means three cars circling MG Road while the cake melts.

Ask whether the lift goes to the top floor — “to the fifth and then stairs” is a real answer you will get — and where people park. Our lift goes all the way up, so the terrace is reachable without a single step, and there is open parking at the foot of the building. It fills fastest between eight and nine on Friday and Saturday; the service lane a short walk away is the overflow everybody local uses.

The short version

1. Book a named area, not just a table for however many.
2. Confirm the cakeage charge before you arrive, not after.
3. Ask what the wet-weather plan is, and whether it is the same menu.
4. Check the last kitchen order and whether the table is being turned.
5. Get the per-head number in advance for anything over fifteen people.
6. Check the lift and the parking. Somebody in the group will need both.

That is the whole checklist, and it works on any roof in the city. If you would like to use it on ours: we are on the top floor above MG Road, we take bookings for up to 60 online, cancellation is free up to two hours before, and there is no booking fee.