While their more ostentatious competitors beckon loudly from their prominent locales, Herbs and Spice prefers to whisper enticingly from a quieter neighbourhood only to the discerning.

On a quiet, residential street in a quiet corner of Indiranagar off of CMH Road is the modest restaurant housed in the ground floor of a nondescript building. But at Herbs and Spice, there is nothing modest
about the food. A simple signboard outside is completely in sync with the Spartan interior with its plaster of Paris walls and a single black and white print for each wall in the name of decoration – no frills here, but a quiet elegance that is functional yet very reminiscent of the Mediterranean. A blackboard on the wall declares the day's menu, where each dish is accompanied with its price. The metaphor of quiet stylishness is sustained through the simple furnishings and the soft jazz or blues tracks in the background.

If you are in the mood for good, reasonably priced Continental cuisine and are looking for cozy place to enjoy it in, Herbs and Spice is the place to be. From the furniture to the layout to the decorations, everything reads simple and utilitarian (even the menu is written out on a big blackboard spanning one entire wall of the restaurant), the ambience will surely make you comfortable.

Rigorous research and fastidious adherence to authenticity is their USP when it comes to serving continental dishes. When asked how close the dishes are to their original taste, the difference, if any, would occur only because of the source of water and the soil in which the ingredients such as herbs and spices used are grown.

The restaurant serves all the usual fare you would expect to find in an Italian restaurant - the pastas, the pizzas, the salads and the soups, but the dishes are made flavorfully. Each one of the five of us was and walnuts, the spaghetti with the pesto sauce, and penne with marinara sauce. The restaurant also serves quiches which I haven't found in many other Italian restaurants in Bangalore.happy with whatever we ordered - the steak, the roasted tomato and red pepper soup, the yummy salad with green apples and walnuts, the spaghetti with the pesto sauce, and penne with marinara sauce. The restaurant also serves quiches which I haven't found in many other Italian restaurants in Bangalore. While meals comprising pastas, steaks, salads, quiches and pies and the breads, croissants and exotic desserts like Pavlovas, apple tarts, chocolate roulades, pear mascarpone tarts, walnut meringues and the very popular egg-less chocolate cakes.

But if you go to Herbs and Spice, and even if you don't eat anything else, you must eat the desserts and the one that I heartily recommend is the Walnut Meringue. In fact, make a trip to Herbs and Spice just to enjoy the succulent richness that is the meringue because you will need an empty stomach to appreciate it and once you eat the meringue, you will not have the space or the appetite to eat anything else any way.