The city of Joy celebrates every festival with equal vigor and enthusiasm. Park Street area in Kolkata is where people flock to celebrate Christmas and New Year. The area beautifully decorated with lights, trees has an ongoing street food festival during this period. With the variety of restaurants available, this can safely be labelled as a food lover’s paradise. Over the Christmas weekend, we decided to brave the crowd of Park Street and head towards one of the best options for fine dining in the city – Marco Polo.
Ambiance – The restaurant has a bar and sitting area on the ground floor while the first floor is marked as the family area. Keeping in tune with the festival spirit, the restaurant was decked up with a Christmas tree right at the entrance. The moment we entered the place, we could feel welcome. There’s something warm, cozy and gorgeous about this place. It is a classy example of perfect fusion of modern architecture with old world charm. The sitting arrangements vary from extremely comfortable sofas to chairs. The seats are well spaced out. The lighting of the place adds a mystic element to the already charming ambiance. The interiors are tastefully done. One can’t help but fall in love with the place. It is recommended to make a reservation before visiting the restaurant. The waiting time can be quite high over the weekend and holidays.
Food – Marco Polo has a wide range of food options from Indian to Chinese to Continental. We decided to order a mix of the famous Chinese and Continental cuisines. For drinks, we tried out Mediterranean Beauty. It had a mixture of juices and tasted great. For the starters, we ordered Prawn Cocktail and Spicy Lemon Fried Chicken. For the main course, we settled on Grilled Pork chop and Bekti A La Meuniere, the later being a recommendation from the staff attending to us. Prawn cocktail, the classic European delicacy had chunks of prawn in brown sauce with segments of boiled egg as topping. It was served in a glass and had a unique flavor. Pork chop was grilled pork accompanied with roasted potato and mushrooms. It was cooked to perfection and tasted divine. Bekti A la Meuniere had two fillets of grilled fish in lemon cream sauce served with parsley – buttered rice and veggies. It tasted heavenly. But for me, the outright winner was spicy lemon fried chicken. Those dices of chicken cooked with Chinese spices and lemon juice were delicious. Fried to perfection, it had the tangy element added in the right proportion so that when one took the first bite, the taste lingered on while the food melted in the mouth. I could just keep going back to the restaurant for this particular dish. For the dessert, we ordered creme caramel. It turned out to be a favorite with my toddler due to the soft texture and balanced sugary syrupy taste. While the menu has a wide choice of food items, the portions served are just about decent for two people.
Service – We had made a booking for 1:45 pm. Due to heavy traffic on Shakespeare Sarani, we couldn’t reach on time. We got a call from the restaurant at sharp 1;45 pm to confirm our location. When we explained the situation we were stuck in, they assured us of holding the table till we reach. Considering that they were already running a full house and had guests waiting, I feel this is a great gesture to make guests feel welcome here. The staffs are polite and professional. They might not come across as extremely courteous or friendly but neither are they intrusive or arrogant. They cater to the requirements of the guests with efficiency and precision without coming across as overbearing. The place had quite a lot of families with young toddlers and kids lunching out. While the staffs might not go out of their way to make the kids feel extra special like few restaurants do in the city, they ensure that their food is taken well care and customized if need be, as per the order.
Pricing – Considering the location, quality and quantity of food, I would say that the place is moderately priced. For all the items we ordered, the total bill including taxes was well within two thousand.
Rating –
My rating across various parameters would be
Ambiance – 5
Food – 5
Service – 4.5
Price – 5
Overall – 4.88
Overall, I would recommend this restaurant as one of the best options in the city to visit with family or as a couple. The picture perfect ambiance, professional service, delightfully tasty choice of cuisines and pocket friendly pricing create an overwhelming fine dining experience.
Link to the review on TripAdvisor –
soniasmusings 
The food pictures are oh, so tempting!!
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Tastes equally good. Enough reason for you to plan a trip back to the city.
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Love all the details, Sonia! Perhaps there is more to Kolkata’s restaurant scene than I assumed 🙂
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Thank you so much. I totally understand what you mean. Having lived in Bangalore for more than a decade, I always felt that Kolkata restaurants primarily meant the age old Park Street joints. But I am discovering quit a different scenario here.
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great.. a bong foodie 😀 hope we will share some similar thoughts in future. do visit our blog..
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Thank you for reading. All the best for your new blog.
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