TICKET 042 | COVER 2 | FIRE 19:30 | BANANI
Uncle Grill House is a five star charcoal restaurant in Banani where beef, lamb, and bay fish meet a live fire that never hides behind a sauce. You sit close enough to hear the grate. You leave with the smell of oak in your jacket.
We print a kitchen ticket for every table: table number, cover count, fire time. That scrap of paper is how the pass talks to the pit. It is also how we refuse to let a five star room become theatre without heat.
Come for the ribeye. Stay because the uncle still walks the floor after the last seating and asks whether the fat rendered the way it should.
TONIGHT ON THE GRATE
A 45 day dry age, a hard sear, and a rest long enough that the juice stays in the muscle. Served with grilled marrow and a mustard seed relish that bites back.
FROM A BANANI YARD TO A FIVE STAR PASS
The first grill was a drum in a family yard off Road 11. Neighbours came for Friday beef, then for Eid lamb, then for the fish that arrived from Cox’s Bazar in a cooler before dawn. The dining room you walk into now still answers to that drum. The linen is heavier. The knives are sharper. The fire is the same argument.
Five star, for us, is not a chandelier count. It is a butcher who can speak about grain, a sommelier who will pour a Sylhet orange wine if that is what the lamb wants, and a floor team that remembers you do not like your water with ice.
We keep the kitchen ticket because it stops the room from becoming a mood board. Someone has to own the fire time. Someone has to own the rest. That someone has a name on the pass.
THREE RULES OF THE HOUSE
THE GRATE
Beef and lamb take a hard coal bed. Fish takes a cooler zone. Vegetables take the edge where the fat drips. Nothing important is steamed then painted with grill marks.
THE REST
Steaks leave the fire and sit. The ticket says when. If a guest is late, the meat waits on a warm plate, not in a pan of grey juice.
THE TICKET
Table, covers, doneness, allergies, fire time. The uncle still reads them at the pass. If it is not on the ticket, it did not happen.
FROM THE BOARD
The full board lives on the menu page, with prices in BDT and notes on spice, doneness, and sharing. These four are the ones regulars order before they sit.
Dry aged in house, mustard seed, bone marrow butter, grilled onion. The house cut. Ask for it on the bone if you are staying for wine.
Bandarban lamb, smoked chili oil, mint stalk, charred lemon. Served in threes because two is an argument and four is a dare.
Minced rib and tail fat, roasted cumin, green chili. Cooked on the skewer until the fat sings. Eaten with onion and a cold lager.
Head-on prawns, garlic butter, mustard greens. The iron stays on the table. You work for the last bit in the head.
THE PIT
Dhaka evenings are humid. Fire still has to be dry. We burn a mix of oak offcuts and coconut shell charcoal so the heat stays clean and the smoke stays short. Long smoke belongs in a different restaurant. This house wants a crust.
The pit captain calls doneness in Bangla and English. Guests who want well done beef get an honest warning and a different cut. We would rather change the steak than lie to the fire.
ROOMS
The main room holds forty-two covers. Banquettes face the pass so you can watch tickets move. The private room holds twelve and has its own speaker so a family can argue about doneness without the next table joining in.
The bar is copper and low light, built for a first drink and a last one. We keep a short list: local craft lager, a serious red that can stand up to marrow, a Sylhet citrus highball, and a no-alcohol smoke tea that is not an afterthought.
Dress is smart. Sneakers are fine if they are clean. Perfume should lose to charcoal, not fight it.
FROM THE BOOK
GUEST NOTE
“They asked how I wanted the lamb, then told me the fire would ignore me if I said well done. I trusted them. I have not ordered lamb anywhere else since.”
GUEST NOTE
“Five star service without the whispering. The uncle checked the ribeye himself. The ticket on the table had our fire time written in pencil. That detail is the whole restaurant.”
GUEST NOTE
“We booked the private room for my father’s seventieth. They printed a menu with his name and still let him walk to the pit. He still talks about the coconut shell charcoal.”
RESERVATION
House 42, Road 11, Block E, Banani, Dhaka 1213, Bangladesh
+880 1713 554 880 | reservations@unclegrillhouse.com
Open daily. Lunch 12:00 to 15:30. Dinner 18:00 to 23:30. Last seating 22:00.
WhatsApp a date and a party size if the phone is busy. We hold tables for twenty minutes past fire time, then we feed the walk-ins.
