In a nutshell:

A super popular, beautiful looking cafe, located in a restored heritage building, with average service, good but not great food & some good coffee (surely not the best I have ever had).

Address & other details: Roastery coffee house

Instagram : Roastery coffee house

Facebook: Roastery coffee house

Meal for 2: ₹1000 onwards

Cuisine type : vegetarian & non vegetarian

Disclaimer: All restaurants / eateries reviewed by YUMMRAJ were visited by YUMMRAJ himself & he has paid for the full Bill & tips also. http://www.yummraj.com does not have even one featured / sponsored reviews. YUMMRAJ believes in going to a restaurant in anonymity, as a normal guest, experience everything & give a honest account of the same to you.

YUMMRAJ rates all the food items & then gives a final overall rating, which is a simple average of the individual item ratings. What the ratings stand for: 5 = Excellent, 4 = Very Good, 3 = Good, 2 = Fair, 1 = Disaster

Short description- in case u r in a hurry

Ever since we landed in kolkata on our last trip, we had been hearing about ‘new cool cafe – roastery’. Different people on different occasions told us that. Well, we thought – let’s check it out.

Roastery coffee house was first started by a 35 year old entrepreneur in hyderabad & after a successful business there, they have opened this beautiful cafe in kolkata. I Read about the story of his journey on the website link here – story of roastery

The ambience & the overall feel of this place is very different from most cafés in kolkata. It’s outstanding- specially the outdoor section.

Well, we got invited by our cousins to roastery. We thought ‘Great’. We were five people & the idea of the meet was to catch up.

Repercussions:

1. On a food trip that we do, we are strict focussed on food. All conversations are on food. Camera is fed before anyone of us gets to eat. Here primary objective was chit chat. Food was secondary focus (sorry about that).

2. We usually order unusual items / items that the eatery is well known for. This could not be followed that well keeping in mind tastes & preferences of everyone.

3. My cousin paid for the food. So I don’t have a bill to show you proof of payment.

Menu card had detailed description of the food. There were nice photographs as well of some of the items.

I did not see any beef / pork on the menu. Usually cafés in india do not sell beef. But most of them sell pork in form of bacon / salami. None of it was there. So options in non vegetarian food was a little bit of fish & mutton and mostly chicken. Vegetarian menu had a wide choice.

When we reached there around 1:30 pm on a Friday afternoon, we had to wait for approx 15 minutes. The tables were full.

The lady at the reception asked us to register in their app so that we are in virtual queue. I think that was a good idea.

The serving staff were always in a hurry & were generally cold. Very ‘to the point’ answers & a body language that says ‘be quick. I don’t have time to talk & resolve your order related uncertainties. Everything is good here.’

We got a table next to a wall that had a huge graphic painted. Above it was a old wooden window with khorkhori (Wood panel sliders that can be adjusted to see what’s happening outside. Seldom can people outside see what’s inside.

The building was a restored old building – very tasteful renovated & painted. The visual appeal of the cafe is outstanding. Hats off to the people who designed this place.

The chequered floor, the beautiful designed furniture, the outstanding crockery ….. everything added to the visual magic

A coffee processing machine was installed in the dining hall. It was not operational on the day we visited. Am sure it will add to the charm of the place as the guests will be able to smell the good coffee.

The coffee making apparatus were also not what we normally see in most cafés in india. On the menu there are different processes in which coffee is made.

The food that we had was good but nothing outstanding at all. Coffee was better than most places in kolkata (surely better than the national chains) but nowhere near to my benchmark of a cafe in india so far – Marc’s coffee Auroville.

Incidentally food was also pure love at Marc’s. Contrary to our experience of cafés in india (most including Starbucks serve very ordinary food), food can be really good in cafés. Food in cafés is really good, in most parts of Europe & in some places in US.

Detailed description – in case u hv the time to njoy reading:

Farm fresh pizza – we usually order this as a litmus test for pizza. The beauty of good farm fresh pizzas lie in the crispiness of the base, the flavors & taste of cheese & the crunchiness of fresh vegetables.

Here the pizza was good to taste. Crust was ok. It was Crisp, but I have surely had better. The seasoning was ok. Nothing stood out in the taste. The cheese was ok. No special flavors. Rate the pizza 3/5

Remembering the outstanding farm fresh pizza at sante spa Ahmedabad.

Mutton keema bruschetta – what we did not realize while ordering this is that the mutton keema would be cooked in the Indian way. We assumed it to be cooked the way beef bruschetta is cooked in the west.

This ended up almost like a dry & crisp version of keema pav – dry keema that held together & a crisp bread at the bottom. Good to taste. Good texture of the bread. The bread was thicker than it ideally should have been. Rate it 3.5/5

Spicy chicken southwest finger – the menu card read strips of chicken cooked with southwest marination & served with spicy sauce.

When the dish arrived, we realized it was deep fried like KFC!!! The description was surely mis-leading.

The fingers were good to taste. Rate them 3/5

Egg & chicken sandwich had a very good & crisp outer crust. The filling of the sandwich was nice & balanced. Rate it 3.5/5

Brownie with liquid chocolate & ice cream was good too. Rate it 3/5. Theobroma brownies are way way better.

All the above food was generally good but not a single one of them was par excellence or comparable with the best.

My partner ordered a cappuccino that came in a really cool cup. Very good I would say. Rate it 4/5

I asked for a strong black coffee with good flavors. Left it open to our server. The black coffee was good but no comparison to Marc’s. I remembered how part of a chain, Gregory’s coffee shop that I used to frequent in 2 park avenue , New York, had fabulous black coffee. Rate it 3.75/5

I think the coffee here is probably among the top 5 in kolkata but it does not compare with the best I have had elsewhere.

In case of coffee the barista lays an important role. A good conversation with the barista often leads to a great cup of coffee if the barista is able to understand the flavor & strength preferences of the guest. That part was totally missing here. The server had no clue.

Overall rating of food & beverages averages out to 3.45/5

I would revisit here strictly in the following situations:

1. To catch up with a friend – coz the ambience is outstanding

2. I would eat somewhere else & have just some new kind of coffee that the server would suggest.