Spices and Spirits — Restaurant in Basingstoke and Deane

I eat with my family at Spices and Spirits last night and felt compelled to write a review at the first chance.

We have a first rate meal and was relieved to finally get the chance to eat in the restaurant. I have honesty tried to book a table on 4 separate occasions and each time the restaurant have been full!....I couldn't believe my bad luck. However now I have eaten a meal there, I totally understand why its been a challenge to get booked in.

It's only fair to add that I have tried to make 'same night' bookings and I've never used the booking system that is referred to on the website. We tend to 'fancy a curry' and never pre-book tables.

We called just a half hour ahead and were delighted to be offered a table....a result!. We arrived and unfortunately had to wait for our table as 7 fresh internet booking had all been made and sadly there wasn't a table for us.

It would have been nice to have been seated somewhere and had a drink offered while we waited for a table....however it was rather busy for a Wednesday and this wasn't easy for the team to do. However, I feel sure this is something that can be fixed for the future as I can see the restaurant is very professionally run and customer care is clearly very evident.

After 10 minutes waiting at the bar, we were shown to our table and were looked after by Prafful. Prafful is a credit to the restaurant as he was kind and cheery and helped us order a first class meal.

Now the food!...this is the best bit. Spices and Spirits is clearly a 'proper' Indian restaurant. I think most Indian restaurants locally are Bangladeshi owned and tend to service similar dishes, cooked a similar way. The food we ate was truly excellent and now I think it will be difficult to go back to the usual Bangladesh type restaurants and expect the same wow factor of the food we eat last night.

Our meal was for 2 adults (Mum and Dad), plus 2 teenage daughters. We had a simple popaddums starter and had wonderful main course to follow. The lamb chops sizziler was amazing...the Konkani fish curry (Indian spicy strength) was wonderful...our girls had butter chicken and lababdar chicken tikka (both delicious) and we had a side dish of bhaji (the best we have tasted) and peshawari naan (fully loaded!) and lovely rices dish's. They serve Cobra on draught....great beer it is too.

I think the price of eating at Spice and Spirits is probably around 20% more than our usual curry house, personally I was happy to accept the uplift as the food really is worth paying a little more for. The restaurant add a 'discretionary' service charge of 10% to the bill....I am personally not a fan of this practise as I like a tip to be truly discretionary and not automatically added to the bill (in my book, that doesn't make it discretionary). With that said, our waiter (Prafful) was a pleasure to give a tip to. I just hope the waiting staff actually get the tip......I'm aware this isn't always the case and that's another reason I'm not a fan of this practise.

The whole meal was totally perfect, the restaurant was full and service was first rate. I heard the restaurant opened in 2019 and obviously had to shut due to Covid....so a tough start to any new venture. I'm so glad they braved the storm and survived as a business...otherwise would be without it's finest Indian restaurant. The decor is quite lovely and I even noticed the walls have sound deadening panels top help with the noise levels in the dining areas.

I hope this is a fair and true account of our visit, we did book in advance and had to wait as a table wasn't available...we would have like to have been seated somewhere and offered a drink while we waited.....we hope this feedback is useful to the manager/owners as I know they would like to make sure all their customers are kept happy.

It's a simple 5 star rating for this restaurant. I have noted a few negative reviews and I think the overall good vs bad ratings tell a story. Well done to a great local business doing an excellent job. Thank you for giving my family a very...

I got some vouchers off a friend for Spices and Spirits so had to check this new Indian restaurant out.

My wife and I were greeted warmly and shown to our table. We ordered drinks and the poppadom baskets & chutney trays whilst we decided what we fancied from their vast menu.

The poppadoms were not that fresh and a bit soggy, not properly crisp, and the mint sauce, mango chutney and onion & tomato salad pots were only 1/4 full so there wasn't enough for our 2 poppadoms each, not mine anyway so not a great start but not the end of the world. it gets better though, much much better.

I ordered the Chicken 65 starter, and this was one of the tastiest things I had ever eaten, Indian wise and was a lovely starter. My wife had the Salmon tikka and also loved hers too. Both were presented beautifully.

We moved onto our mains. I had the Lamb Nilgiri. This was a lovely hot and spicy dish and very tasty, nothing like I had had before. There was plenty of it and the lamb was beautifully tender and pink inside. My mushroom rice was nice, different to what you normally get in an Indian restaurant, was a lot looser than rice I've had elsewhere. Sharon had the Lamb Roganjosh with boiled rice and also loved hers. Her lamb was also beautifully cooked and tender. I did try a bit of hers and it was delicious. I love cardamom seeds and the Rogan had a slight cardamom taste through it, was really nice and tasty 😋

We had plain naan bread with our mains and this was lovely too, will definitely try the chilli naan next time for sure. In fact I could go through their whole menu it looks that good and vastly different to your average curry house.

The food was priced quite well and we will definitely be back. The reason I gave 4 stars and not 5 was for the not so crisp poppadoms and the 1/4 full chutney trays. For what poppadoms cost to make this shouldn't happen and first impressions speak.

Thanks for the amazing food and see you again soon team Spices...

Reviewed in 2019: This is without a doubt the best Indian food I had since l lived Basingstoke and UK throughout. All dishes are made to order with the freshest ingredients, Authentic flavors and lovely friendly staff and of course the host !

Awareness is another key factor, that what is cooking at chef's arena. All I can say tasting various lovely flavours of food, this has certainly a stamp of North Indian Cuisine (Delhi , Mughlai , & Punjabi Style). However, what i have experienced other North Indian restaurants all over UK mainly the chef is Bangladeshi (curry taste sweet and they changes to different style which i personally don't like) and for me as "Delhiite" I stick to food consistencies. Which is proven the day we visited Spices and Spirits! - Ref Update 2023

Update 2023: We're in the post-COVID era and have begun exploring various locations across the UK. However, we've noticed that menus at this restaurants are pricier and the portion sizes may not cater to typical Indian family preferences. This observation is based on price variations across different regions like London, Manchester, Leeds, and Birmingham, where Indian restaurants serve a larger client base compared to Basingstoke. Additionally, concerning food delivery platforms like Uber Eats and Deliveroo, the lack of enticing deals for Indian cuisine in our area is evident. It would greatly benefit both customers and restaurants to introduce such deals, enhancing the quality, quantity, and overall customer satisfaction.

2024 Update: The dining experience at Spice and Spirits has significantly improved over the past year. The quality of the food has become noticeably better, with dishes that are fresher and more authentic, while pricing is now more reasonable and aligns well with portion sizes, catering to Indian family preferences. Hospitality has also seen a positive shift, with staff providing a more attentive and...