Neemsi, the Bengaluru vegetarian restaurant that cooks with spices straight from the farm

For two and a half years, Neemsi has been building its restaurants around a very Indian idea. Serving someone well is the most serious kind of care.

Bengaluru (Karnataka) [India], October 1: In most Indian homes, the first question isn’t “how are you”. It’s “khana khaya?” Your grandmother asks it. Your mother asks it on the phone from another city. The neighbour asks it when you drop in for five minutes. Food is how we check on people, and serving someone a proper meal has always been taken very seriously. Staff Reporter · Food & Lifestyle Desk · Bengaluru, Karnataka Neemsi, the pure vegetarian restaurant with outlets in JP Nagar and Basavanagudi, is built on that habit. It opened in April 2024, and everything about the place, from what goes into the kitchen to how a guest is met at the door, comes back to one line the team uses internally: no one at a Neemsi table eats second best.

Two plants, one name

Neemsi is neem and tulsi joined into one word. Neem is the tree at the edge of the compound that keeps the house safe. Tulsi grows in the courtyard and is offered to a guest before anything else is discussed. Both show up at the restaurant before the food does. Neem incense is lit at the entrance before every service, at both outlets, so it is the first thing you smell walking in. A house-made tulsi palate cleanser reaches the table as soon as you sit down, before anyone has taken an order. It is served in the restaurant’s own glassware. Nothing here comes to the table straight out of a bottle.

Spices that come straight from the farmer

The kitchen buys its whole spices directly from farmers in the regions known for them, instead of picking up packets from a wholesale market. Cardamom from Idukki in Kerala. Black pepper from Wayanad and Coorg. Byadgi chillies from north Karnataka, prized for their colour more than their heat. Jeera from Rajasthan and Gujarat, turmeric from Erode, saffron from Pampore in Kashmir. Buying this way means the spice reaches the kitchen fresher, with its oils intact, and the money goes to the person who actually grew it. You can taste the difference in something as simple as a dal tadka. A pod of cardamom that was on the plant a few months ago smells nothing like one that has sat in a godown for two years. Guests get to see this for themselves. The Spiceology wall inside the restaurant lays out the whole spices the kitchen cooks with and where each one comes from. People stop there between courses, read the cards, and very often end up talking to the staff about which masala their own family swears by. The kitchen is pure vegetarian, and most of the menu can be made Jain on request, so you only need to tell the steward when you sit down.

A menu that starts with dishes you already know

The regular menu runs to over 100 dishes across North Indian, Italian, Thai, Continental and Indo-Chinese, and each of these cuisines comes with a Neemsi twist. The range matters when a table of eight wants eight different things. A lot of it takes a dish people grew up with and rebuilds it. The Mysore Pak Cheesecake is exactly what it sounds like, the Mysuru sweet set into a cheesecake, and it is usually the first thing a regular tells a new guest to order. Dahi papdi chaat arrives with avocado. The Tapri Paneer Chilli is served in a cabbage nest. The taste you remember is still there. Everything around it has been rethought, which is where the restaurant’s line, “Veg Cuisine Redefined”, comes from.

The Neemsi Edit, and what’s on now

The Edit came about a year and a half after the restaurant opened, because so many guests had started coming back again and again. The share of repeat guests was higher than anything the team had seen, and those regulars needed something new to look forward to. So every season, Neemsi now adds a short, limited menu called the Edit. Each one runs for a few months and is then taken off for good. The Summer Edit was built around Alphonso mango. The Monsoon Edit brought Jamun Ginger Jaljeera and a Mushroom Stroganoff Toast for rainy evenings. The current one is the Festive Edit, on till 15 November 2026 and timed for Navratri, Durga Puja, Dussehra and Diwali. It is made for the many people in Bengaluru who can’t travel home for the festivals, and each dish points to a different part of the country. There is a Kolkata Mini Club Kachori with aloo saag, a Beetroot Galauti with molten pudina, a Sabudana Ratna Tikki with shakarkandi mousse, a Moringa and Rice Shorba made with the nugge soppu every Kannada kitchen knows, and a Royal Kunafa Toast with makhana kheer and mini rasgulla to finish.

The people who make it work

The kitchen team is in by 8 am, and prep for lunch starts right then. By 12, when the doors open, lunch is ready to go out. On the floor, the stewards are the ones guests mention most in their reviews, often before they get to the food. They will warn you when a portion is big enough to share. If there is a birthday at the table, dessert has a way of arriving without anyone asking. When a family walks in with a toddler, the high chair is usually already waiting. None of this is complicated. It just has to happen at every table, every service, at both outlets. That is the hard part, and it is what the team spends most of its effort on. “People don’t come to a restaurant only to eat. They come because it’s someone’s birthday, or the in-laws are visiting, or it’s been a long week. Somebody has trusted us with that evening. If they leave a little happier than they came in, we’ve done our job. We take that responsibility very seriously.” FOUNDER, NEEMSI

Families, kitty parties and big tables

Walk in on a Sunday afternoon and you will see three generations at one table, with the grandparents ordering Jain, the kids going straight for the Italian, and everyone sharing the dessert. On weekdays, the lunch service is popular with kitty parties and office groups. Birthdays, anniversaries and small family celebrations make up a good part of the bookings. The Basavanagudi outlet sits on KR Road, in a neighbourhood that has always taken its food seriously. The JP Nagar outlet is in 6th Phase, close to a lot of south Bengaluru’s family homes. Two and a half years in, the two restaurants have more than 20,000 Google reviews between them, with an average rating of 4.8, and a third outlet is being planned. The growth has come mostly from guests who come back and bring someone new with them. For a restaurant built on the idea of serving people well, that is probably the result that counts most.

Plan your visit

JP NAGAR Ground Floor, Sai Panorama, 15th Cross Road, KR Layout, JP Nagar 6th Phase, Bengaluru 560078 +91 96860 60429 BASAVANAGUDI 2, Krishna Rajendra Road, Basavanagudi, Bengaluru 560004 +91 96860 60443 TIMINGS Lunch 12 noon – 3:30 pm Dinner 7 pm – 11 pm COST FOR TWO Around ₹1,500 Pure veg · Jain on request RESERVATIONS neemsirestaurant.com Festive Edit till 15 Nov 2026

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