Say Yes To Yokocho, Kolkata’s Brand New Barbeque Bar

When a prodigal son returns, you want to sit up and look at his craft with just that little extra supervision to see if he still has the edge. And so at the opening of Yokocho, a barbeque bar set up by Ramesh Kumar Agarwal and Abhimanyu Maheshwari, all eyes were seemingly on chef partner Auroni Mookerjee. 

Agarwal and Maheshwari are no lightweights either. The former is a fourth-generation food leader and entrepreneur, while the latter is the founder of Rang De Basanti Dhaba, the largest North Indian brand in East India, as well as the bar-forward space Conversation Room in Kolkata. 

If you’re curious what Yokocho means, it’s basically an alleyway that leads to izakayas where people enjoy casual food and drinks. “Like khau gallis of India,” Mookerjee adds. 

The founders united over their shared travels in the East, from Thailand to Korea to Japan, and found a space at Park Street with one of the best views of the city’s most popular street. Strangely, it had been lying vacant for a while because no one wanted the corner spot because of bad vaastu. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise, and much like Parsi foodpreneurs in Mumbai who happily took up road corner shops in Mumbai, Yokocho found its place next to a popular barbeque chain on the same floor, along a winding corridor. 

“The location played its part in helping us decide the final format of launching Yokocho as an Eastern barbeque and bar,” Maheshwari informs, while Mookerjee says, “From Calcutta to Kyoto, I have found that every galli has its own flavour and culinary culture, and Yokocho is our celebration of that spirit.” 

Food 

Chef Mookerjee’s cooking found its bearing at Salthouse and a firm footing at Sienna in Kolkata, and reimagining traditional Bengali cuisine became his calling card across various pop-ups. The idea for a yokocho-inspired barbeque menu, therefore, took a second to take in. 

“While I haven’t stopped exploring Kolkata’s baajaars, Yokocho is a personal quest to portray another side of my cooking by exploring newer countries and communities,” he says. 

Thus, we find Korean banchans arriving in tiny bowls as bar bites. While endemic to Korean cuisine as complementary side portions, Mookerjee’s twist is to use ingredients from the kitchen and bar that might otherwise be thrown away and repurpose them into banchans. It’s exciting because you never quite know what the banchans might be when you go – from fish to veggies or even seasonal fare – anything could arrive as a bar bite. 

Yokocho also serves ramen (of course!), and all the ingredients, including the noodles, are made in-house. And so the Creamy Paitan Style Ramen with your choice of Chicken or Pork Chashu comes as freshly made as possible and becomes an instant favourite. 

I also enjoyed the clever twists of Calcutta-meets-the-East dishes such as Butternut and Shaak Gyoza, BBQ Begun, Grilled Bagda Chingri and Saint Bhetki that tantalise with its familiar Indian ingredients and elevated Eastern flavours on the palate. 

In keeping with the relaxed vibe of the place, other dishes such as Hangover Rice, Kinda Dan Dan Noodles and Comfort Coconut Curry find flavour and texture from the barbeque that almost every dish touches before reaching the table. 

With almost every dish, Mookerjee showcases Asian cuisine just the way it's meant to be – with a certain restraint that allows the ingredients to shine through and staying away from theatrics that would have been the easiest thing to do with barbeque cooking. 

Drinks 

If you’ve ever wanted to walk behind a bar but have never done so, Yokocho lets you. Patrons can pass behind the bar to reach the smoking zone or just turn around, even as the bartenders prepare fresh new concoctions for guests. Designed by Anirudh Singhal’s SpeedX Bars, the walking bar area is a nod to yokochos, where you might have to squeeze yourself while walking its narrow lanes. “It’s one of the most interesting projects we’ve done so far with the bar having a long-running counter on both sides that makes you feel like you’re part of the performance, no matter where you’re seated,” says Singhal. 

The drinks themselves are simple, easy concoctions that don’t come with overloaded garnishes or fancy techniques. Designed by Pankaj Balachandran’s Countertop India, the cocktails start with Highballs and variations on classics from Manhattan to Martini. I sampled a few of these, starting with the Spring Water Highball, perhaps the simplest cocktail conceived anywhere in the country, with just a blend of whisky and 48-hour water softened in clay pots. The drink still holds its own and surprises with its soft finish. 

I also loved Blood and Smoke, a take on the forgotten classic Blood and Sand, that uses mezcal along with dark cherry liqueur, sweet vermouth and orange juice, leaving a blend of earthy and fruity notes to savour. 

My favourite, though? The Bond Walked Into A Yokocho drink that blends gin with sake, olive oil, gondhoraj and dry vermouth and comes with a free licence to thrill the palate. 

ELLE Gourmet’s Verdict

“You go to any food street in an Asian city, and two things you will always find are easy drinks and some small bites and fried food to go with it. Those are our two North Poles at Yokocho,” Mookerjee says of the space. Thus, whether it’s the food or the drinks, Yokocho finds your comfort spot and doesn’t let go. We recommend staying a while, watching the traffic flow through Park Street below and keeping the origami cats company while you enjoy the banchans and other bites. 

In a burgeoning landscape of new spots that’s putting Kolkata on the nation’s food map, Yokocho is yet another bright new star that you cannot afford to miss on your next trip to the City of Joy. 

Yokocho Eastern Bar & BBQ

Address: 1st Floor, Park Centre, 24 Park Street, Kolkata, West Bengal - 700016. 

Timings: 6 PM – Midnight (Mondays closed) 

Price: INR 1500 per person (with a cocktail) 

For Reservations, Contact: +91 91474 17822