Spiceberry- Caroline Street, Cardiff

Caroline Street.

You might grin, you might grimace; either way, if you're in Cardiff- or have ever visited- the name will mean something to you. Traditional home of the hungry and the hanging, the ravenous and the ratarsed, where culinary sophistication is probably the last thing to cross your mind as you line up for your chips and cheese.

Chef Pramod Nair would like to change all that.

Spiceberry is easy to miss; you could happily wander right past it, as its street-level presence is limited to a single door leading upstairs.The most cursory look at this menu makes it clear that those 'curry house' staples- chicken vindaloo, lamb dopiaza, onion bhaji- are nowhere to be seen. What is in evidence is an- admittedly small- selection of Indian home cooking, and home cooking from the region of Kerala in particular.

However, a well-thought-out menu is one thing. A foundational philosophy is all well and good. But it's all for nothing if the food doesn't come up to scratch. To which I would say- I went last Monday. And I went back last Friday night. (I did try to think of a more elegant ratings system honest, but 'I went back there four days later' just seems to nail it...)  Now, Spiceberry has always been a very decent option for Indian food- probably the best in the City Centre, and its debt to Anand George was clear. That is no bad thing; any chef serving the kind of food he has, in a small city, will doubtless set the bar for colleagues and rivals alike; and the previous chef at Spiceberry worked at both Mint & Mustard and Purple Poppadom.

But the change of ownership has brought new ideas and Pramod Nair has more lofty ambitions. Having worked all over the world in various capacities- from India to Iceland, Devon to Denmark, and at several restaurants in the UK, he has settled in South Wales and he wants to change our conceptions of what Indian food can be.

Specifically, he wants to promote the authentic tastes of Kerala; the menu does this and makes no concession to the predictable high street choices. Right now, this is Keralan food, no more no less. If that means disappointed punters thwarted in their search for lamb jalfrezi, then so be it, though they miss a real trick as they descend the stairs.

I said the menu was small. Six starters at present, followed by nine mains (four aimed at vegetarians), seems slim pickings. On Monday we opted for the 'Chutta Chemeem' (marinated, grilled King prawns) and what I was later told is Chef's favourite: 'Thara Kuttanadan', or duck. The pictures won't do these justice; the lighting is low, and the iPhone has its limitations.

Pappadums were light and crisp, and served with a typical lime pickle and its mango counterpart; the surprise element came from a silky red onion and date chutney which I've never encountered before and which  kept us guessing until our waiter put us out of our misery.

 The prawns were very good indeed; the duck was sublime.

 It was the kind of dish you immediately plan to eat on your next visit, dense and dark and tender and hot. Green chillies and curry leaves, ginger and garlic and onion; everyday components but assembled with real flair. The beansprout and watercress salad was as light as it needed to be but this is a standout dish.

My main was a 'Meen Curry'- a spicy swordfish dish, hot with chillies but balanced with an accompaniment of cassava (tapioca) which I was advised to mash in with the curry sauce. I hadn't tried curried swordfish before but the portions, simmered in the coconut and chilli gravy, were deeply satisfying and less fiery than I feared. The restaurant was quiet enough for Chef Nair to sit with us as we ate and discuss his vision for his kitchen. A real sense of ambition and enthusiasm was evident, as well as a commitment to constantly evaluate and evolve.

It won't come as a surprise to say that I ordered the duck again on our return- it had been playing on my mind. Once again it was an excellent plate of food and it was interesting to see that its presentation had changed a little in the intervening four days. Slivers of toasted coconut now flecked the surface, in addition to some mysterious crispy amber garnish. Again; I was at a loss (you might find that, here- some of the ingredients on offer are far removed from curry orthodoxy) until we discovered they were in fact tiny scraps of the marinated skin from the duck, coated in rice flour and deep-fried just before serving.

 

Mrs S loved her 'Kozhi Porichathu'; bites of chicken which had been marinated in a host of spices (Kashmiri chilli, cinnamon, ground cloves, nutmeg, garam masala and others) for 24 hours before being quickly fried in the karahi and served with a tart tamarind and chilli sauce. (Again, apologies for the photo quality...)

 If I had to carp about something- and I suppose I might as well- I found the salad this time around a little under-dressed. The chicken, however, was first-rate, crisp and hot and well-spiced.

Our mains did not disappoint.

(Insert recurring photo-quality apology here)

The tiger prawn curry (Calicut Chemeem, lower picture) was rich with coconut and sour with tamarind- one of my favourite flavours, without contest- and just right as spice levels go for me. All it needed was some plain steamed rice. The Beef Varatt was a pot-roasted triumph of slow cooked tender topside, peppery and coconutty and thick and dry. Excellent.

So. I'm going to nail my colours to the mast here and applaud the arrival of something special in the city. The skill, the vision and the drive are plain to see. You'd have to be that way, to be nominated by the redoutable Fay Maschler as one of the  top 5 Indian chefs in London (when Nair was running Coromandel, in Battersea Rise)and he is now in Cardiff city centre. A smidge over a mile away, Anand George continues to serve his stellar menus, and is about to open Munchesters in The Hayes.

Let's face it; it's a good time to be eating Indian food in Cardiff. The rain might well fall hard on a humdrum town (as I write this, steam is gently rising from my sodden jacket), but the flavours of Kerala are here to brighten the day.

I just hope its location doesn't put discerning diners off.