It takes me three attempts to get to Yokocho. Not because I do not know my way around Kolkata, but because the city’s newest hotspot prefers that you take time to find it. That however has not restricted the gourmand Calcuttan — the place is packed when I finally make it.
“Some of these are our friends and some are guests who walked in looking for us; we could not say no to them!” co-founder Abhimanyu Maheshwari says as he ushers me into the yet-to-be-open place. As I settle in his favourite spot overlooking the busy Park Street and begin scanning the room, Maheshwari quickly guesses what’s playing in my mind. “Everyone wants to meet him today, it may take some time for him to reach here,” Maheshwari chuckles, clearly aware of his partner and co-founder chef Auroni Mookerjee’s popularity.
Well, who isn’t?
A poster boy of Kolkata’s modern dining today, Mookerjee did not start off as a chef. Hailing from Delhi, and working in Mumbai as an ad-man, he made his culinary debut by hosting pop-ups at his Mumbai home. While simultaneously spending time with chef Viraf Patel, helping him out with restaurant consulting projects. It was on one such project that Mookerjee came to Kolkata to set up (the now closed) Salt House. And while he did leave the city briefly to work with chef Ritu Dalmia, he was too in love with Kolkata to stay away for long.
It was Mookerjee’s second stint here, when he joined the then upcoming Sienna Café, that his core philosophy, of baajar-to-table, took shape. “As a child I would accompany my grandmothers to the baajar whenever I visited them,” he had told me once. “In the city, like in the region, the baajar decides what people eat and I wanted to remain true to that ethos through my cooking.” And so, over his four-and-a-half year stint at Sienna, where he made the modern Calcuttan appreciate native flavours; seasonal produce remained the axis of not just his food philosophy but also his identity as a chef. To say he spearheaded the resurgence of Kolkata in the modern food scene in India will not be an exaggeration. Now that he was back after another longer break, the city seemed eager to see what he had brought to the table.
“Kichu kheycho?” is the first thing Mookerjee says when he sees me (trust a Bengali to ask another about food before anything else!) and orders a bunch of things. I am surprised that he remembers that I do not like chewy pork or smelly fish and chooses things on the menu that have neither.
In a quick chat before he dashes to other tables, I find out how Yokocho was not Mookerjee’s planned comeback. But the newly minted entrepreneur pivoted once he saw the space and proportionate rentals. “Getting a space on Park Street at this price is impossible, so we decided to work with it,” he explains, sharing how the concept of a street style bar and restaurant emerged from the uneven shape and unusual location of the property. “You had to walk through these winding alleys, along sundry shops and stalls to get here, which reminded us of the streets of Hong Kong, Japan, and Bangkok, and we decided to create our take on the comforting street food and dive bars of the East.”
Us in this case being co-founders and partners Abhimanyu Maheshwari, Ramesh Kumar Agarwal, and Mookerjee himself, who after his recent break, decided it was time to put his neck on the line, and get into the business head on. And so, Yokocho became the first of three places the trio is set to open.
From where I am seated I can see the entire restaurant. The seating is diner style with high chairs by the grill, a long winding bar, and a chic smoking room. The walls are bare but textural, adding warmth to the space, while the furniture, made with live-edged wood, blends in subtly but gracefully; neon lights trace the structure, drawing the energy of the city inside. The bar, grill, and the kitchen I learn, was designed as one comprehensive unit that not just brings the guest closer to bartenders and chefs but also allows for the team to work seamlessly. Auroni’s vision, says Anirudh Singhal of SpeedX — who created the set up — was clear from the start, and how “rewarding it was to work with someone who is so precise.”
The food starts arriving. There is Grilled Galda Lobster, Bombay Duck Tempura, Pork Belly Char Siu, Shiozake Salmon and many small cups of Banchan, a Korean style snack typically eaten with cocktails. “I have vivid memories of having Banchan at Korean restaurants while growing up in Delhi and I wanted to make it a part of the menu,” says Mookerjee sharing how he used local fish, meat, and vegetables to create most of his menu — be it Galda, a large local prawn in place of the lobster, Bombay duck in place of cod, or bhetki instead of salmon. The Galda is what I start with. Deeply flavourful and indulgent, it tells me the chef has remained true to his ethos. The pork is perfectly cooked, melts in the mouth, boasting of a beautiful caramelised outer layer and melts in the mouth. It is however the salmon that knocks me out — smokey, buttery, and flaky, it is absolutely exquisite. “I told you, you will love it,” says Mookerjee with his signature wry smile.
While food is always the focus when Auroni is associated with a place, here, I see equal attention being paid to beverages. You quickly notice how Pankaj Balachandran’s bar programme harks back to the street-side bars of the East, and yet was ‘not basic’. The few cocktails I taste showcase the same.
For example, The Spring Water Highball, is the smoothest highball I have had in a long time. Beer First Whiskey Later sounds, and tastes like a drink that is a mix of beer and whiskey but is actually a cleverly made drink with tea, hops, soda, and of course, whiskey.
“Yokocho is a chef’s bar and we did not want to take the attention away from the food, so we designed simple cocktails like highballs, negronis, and martinis but with detailed processes that stay behind the scene,” explains Balachandran. The sphere of ice that keeps the lips chilled giving an impression of the drink being colder than it is, and the water, softened in earthen matkas for over 48 hours and carbonated in house, adding to the smoothness of the highball, are just two such examples.
By the time the chef returns to check on how I’m faring,I am already done with three cocktails, licked many plates clean, and talked to the team of chefs, bartenders, and guests, each more excited than the other to be a part of the Yokocho story.
But how does Auroni Mookerjee himself feel about it? “During my time away from the kitchen, my desire to do something more personal became clearer. I wanted to own the story I was telling and here I am able to do that,” he says matter of factly. “I have found partners with the same vision, and together we want to keep the city at the center of everything we do,” explains Mookerjee adding how his focus is not on nomenclature, story-telling, or proving anything to anyone, but to dish out good food that can be enjoyed by everyone.
Having witnessed the craze of his food, the maturing of his technique, his evolution as a chef, and having tasted plates after plates in Yokocho; I have no doubt that this food will reach far and wide just like Mookerjee’s fame.
