Provided is a cooking/grilling apparatus, primarily for outdoor use, providing smoking and/or direct or indirect heat cooking capability, and offering the user enhanced cooking flexibility, temperature control, safety and convenience of operation. The grill apparatus is unique in that it offers a downward opening lid that rotates, such as on rollers or a pivot mechanism, to a fully open position beneath the base plate of the cooking enclosure, and reverses to an upward rotation to re-close the cooking enclosure. Moreover, the grill apparatus offers a vertically adjustable cooking grate, controlled by a continuous loop cable, moving over a set of pulleys, thereby reliably controlling the height of the cooking grate when affixed to a crank on the outer surface of the grill, wherein movement of the grate can also be locked in place.