Fancy a curry? Southampton will soon have the ultimate Indian restaurant when the city’s newest cruise ship arrives in port in 2010.

Azura, P&O Cruises’ next addition to its fleet, will add a touch of spice to the growing popularity of cruising with its own curry restaurant.

Details of facilities on board the vessel, work on which is already under way in Italy, were revealed last night. It is a very similar ship to Ventura, launched by Dame Helen Mirren in Southampton earlier this year.

In 2010, Azura will join Cunard’s Queen Elizabeth, also being built in Italy, and Celebrity Cruises’ third Solstice class vessel, Celebrity Eclipse, now under construction in Germany, in Southampton.

The Indian restaurant is just one of a number of innovative on board “firsts’’.

Others include 18 single staterooms, and two large suites for extended families or groups to share, a record 900 staterooms with private balconies and a swimming complex with an open air cinema.

The Retreat will be an exclusive area on the open deck with private cabanas for al-fresco massages, sun-loungers and personal waiter service.

Just one of 11 eating places on Azura, the Indian restaurant, to be called Sindhu, meaning “meeting place’’ and “born from the sea’’ in Hindu, will be the creation of Michelin-starred chef Atul Kochhar.

Azura will feature an English-style pub, a show lounge designed around the theme of New York and dance floor in the vessel’s atrium, making it the social hub of the ship.