TAKING a refreshing approach to food we all too often associate with takeaways, co-owner Minesh Agnihotri reveals the food  you get in curry houses is nothing like what you get in India. “We serve real Indian food – the kind which a lot of people will never have seen or heard about.” Opened by Minesh and his partner Byron Swales as a companion to their Hove branch, this East Street restaurant has proved an enormous hit with its candlelit atmosphere, tranquil Indian music and its range of southern Indian and European cuisine.

Dishes are not individually priced but served as part of a £23.95 three-course menu or a £19.95 two-course menu.

Starters include masala dosa, a South Indian speciality, complemented by coconut chutney, and haribhari tikki, a gluten-free dish of spinach, green peas and potatoes, deep fried with aromatic spices.

Main courses include chicken, fish and vegetable but no beef is served, as Indian Summer is a Hindu restaurant. Prawns lashuni (garlic infused King prawns in a home-style sauce with tomatoes, onions and spices), is a popular dish, as is the purdah murgh (slowcooked chicken with bell peppers).

Also tempting is the Kashmiri Dum Aloo Paneer, a gluten-free dish of ovenbaked baby potatoes and home-made paneer in a creamy, saffron-flavoured tomato sauce, served with paratha and cumin rice. Puddings, such as vanilla seed cheesecake with winter fruit compote, balance out the spice, and the house wine is unusually good. There is also an Indian Summer in Victoria Terrace, Hove.