A note on the words: samosa is the fried pastry parcel, dosa the thin fermented crepe of South India, kosambari a South Indian salad of soaked pulses and vegetables, and biryani the layered rice dish cooked with meat and whole spices. Dal means pulses and the curry made from them; chutney is the relish served alongside, raita the yogurt one, and gunpowder a dry, fiercely hot South Indian condiment. Tandoor is the clay oven, and chicken tikka the marinated chicken cooked in it. Naan is the flatbread from the same oven, and lassi the yogurt drink. Shuruat is Hindi for a beginning. GEMS is a chain of Tokyo buildings given over entirely to restaurants. Prices are as of this writing (August 2026).
SPICE LAB TOKYO on Tabelog (English) — opening hours, payment details and the Japanese address are kept up to date there, not here.
I want something good to eat today too. This is Hangover Meshi. This time, Ginza. I went to SPICE LAB TOKYO, a stylish modern Indian cuisine restaurant I had been curious about for a long time. The hardcore Indian curry shops are delicious too, but this is Indian food this elegant, served as a full course in something like the French manner. I was looking forward to meeting dishes I had never eaten before.
It is in a GEMS building, so the whole thing is restaurants. Step out of the lift and you are already at the door, which is very GEMS. Inside it is fairly dark, a moody room. The windows are wide, and a seat with a view outside might be pleasant. Good atmosphere.
[DINNER] Course, 15,000 yen
[DINNER] Vegetarian Course, 15,000 yen
There is a vegetarian course. I wanted meat as well, so this time the ordinary dinner course.
I arrived a little before the appointed time, so I jumped the gun with a beer while waiting.
The kingfisher on the label is charming. Apparently this is the flagship premium lager of Kingfisher, a brand of enormous popularity in India. Drinking it, it is refreshing and easy in an Asian way. A sweet aroma like maple syrup is its character, and it might suit Indian food, where you are enjoying the smell of spice.
(Since I made it an aperitif, I never did get to drink it with the Indian food.)
Everyone assembled and the course began. Looking at the menu card, this is a full course through and through. Looking forward to it.
First, an appetizer titled an invitation to India. A spiced tomato soup, and a deep purple potato called Shadow Queen, with passion fruit and the like on top. It is so airy that we were told to use our hands, and even picked up by hand it feels on the edge of collapsing. Into the mouth, and the aroma of spice spreads softly, joined by the sweetness and acidity of the Shadow Queen and the fruit — a very elegant flavor. Refined Indian cooking.
Samosa, the Indian snack. Another charming-looking thing. On the plate are heaps of the familiar spices — clove, cardamom, black cardamom, star anise, cinnamon and more. Apparently they were laid out to recreate the atmosphere, or rather the smell, of an Indian street stall. They are also the popular curry spices, so I imagine it does smell like this (never having been).
And we were told to eat it dipped in a dal (chickpea) masala.
The first bite plain. Spice rising softly, and the meat with real substance behind it. Dipped into the chickpea sauce it is twice as good. How to put it — an amateur cannot tell whether it is a curry or a sauce, but the impression is of a thin bean curry. Sauce included, this is delicious.
A grilled dish with various things tucked inside chicken tikka. Eaten with the sauce in front. The fragrance of the grill and the spice of curry. The egg, or avocado, or whatever is inside is interesting too. The complex spice, texture and aroma mingle into a delicate flavor quite unlike ordinary chicken tikka — a first experience.
Dosa! The usual dosa is enormous, but this is a tiny, one-bite dosa. Inside is a duck filling, and since dosa is often eaten dipped in chutney, three colors of chutney are arranged on top. They told us the colors are those of the Indian flag.
Very stylish indeed.
It really is the Indian flag. From the left, tomato, coconut and coriander chutney, we were told. The sauce at the lower left is a fiercely hot one called gunpowder, to be used as you like. One bite: a crisp texture, and within a faint acidity and toastiness the duck filling is delicious. Then the sweetish chutney, and the aroma of coriander and coconut. Another complex flavor. It feels a little like being at a funfair of food — a plate you experience. The second bite with the hot sauce shows a different face again.
A South Indian salad. Dressed with a tamarind miso sauce. Very pretty to look at, too.
This is something. This is really something.
Then a spicy, bouillabaisse-like sauce made from the prawn shells is poured over, and it is complete.
A fragrant, spicy sauce packed with the savor and scent of shellfish and a very deep seafood flavor. Plump prawns, with the salt coming from caviar. Cauliflower is among the ingredients, and its soft-crumbling texture and aroma mingle nicely with the spice.
How stylish is that.
It was never going to be anything but delicious. Delicate aromas mingling, and firm savor underneath. Extraordinary.
I was moved by the last one, and there is still the main meat course to come.
Lamb cooked until tender, with lily bulb and sautéed spinach. It looks very good.
One bite: the savor and aroma of the lamb go beautifully with the sauce. The meat itself is extremely tender.
This comes with a mini naan and a dal curry. Good with the naan, good with the lamb.
Last, the signature biryani. It looks wonderful. The aroma that rises the moment the lid comes off is irresistible.
Biryani really is delicious. That fragrant rice and the complex spice aroma are wonderful.
What strikes you first is the perfume of basmati rice rising as the lid lifts, layered with saffron and whole spices. The grains stand separate, there is little oil, and it is astonishingly light. The meat and other things hidden inside are moist and tender, the spice soaked to the core and yet the heat and the assertion both gentle. As you mix it the layers of flavor come undone and the character shifts partway through, which is a pleasure. The raita alongside pulls the whole thing together and settles the finish cleanly — a calculated construction. Within the course it has the elegance to be finished without strain, a plate that feels Ginza somehow, refined. What an experience.
Dessert was ice cream with a tea sweet. The course ended with black tea.
Looking back it was a course of real volume. Stomach and heart both satisfied.
Indian food places its weight on aroma, and does so from the first plate to the last. I am rather an amateur where Indian cooking is concerned, and even so the look, the smell and the taste were more than delicious, surprising, thoroughly satisfying. Indian food is deep, I thought again, and it is not only curry. I found myself wanting to go and eat more Indian food that is not curry. It is on the expensive side, but weighed as value I thought it was very good value indeed. I would like you to go. Recommended.
SPICE LAB TOKYO (Innovative / Ginza Station, Yurakucho Station, Hibiya Station)
Tabelog dinner rating ★★★★☆ 4.0
I ate here and paid for it myself. Nothing on this site is a comped meal.
One more for the road?
