The wave of Indian restaurants sweeping across Britain is well represented by Mint Leaf Lounge and Restaurant near to Bank in the City of London, where an indisputable elegance survives well the glitter which is part of the true India. As the red flock tumbles before the Bollywood approach it might be asked if the cuisine of the incomparable sub-continent as we have tended to hitherto know it, was also under attack, to which the answer would be 'perhaps', but substitute 'review' for attack.

Most cuisines develop - they have to - even if they leave behind them a stronghold of tradition that is their base. The Indian cooking in London particularly, and also well beyond takes heed of that tradition, transforms it in places, and the new cooking emerges based on the age old authentic flavours of India, fused exotically with a unique ethnic edge.

Nor does it stop there. Service is something of which the eastern psyche is proud, not embarrassed, that survives well in a world where the concept of a classless society has been replaced well by a corporate approach with its own separate but interlinked values.

The menu at Mint Leaf makes no apology for making full use of seasonal British ingredients, and linking them with the traditional Tandoor oven, char grill and Tawa plate, creating innovative and contemporary, fresh, healthy food backed by authentic Indian flavours that invoke the spices of the mystic East.