To reduce cycle-to-cycle variations in SI-IC engines, knowledge of early flame kernel growth in a turbulent flow field is required. Understanding the interaction between a flame kernel and a vortex is an important fundamental step toward this goal. This paper presents high-speed movies of combustion luminosity during the interaction of a laminar vortex with a spark-generated pre-mixed flame kernel in a quiescent combustion chamber. The resulting time evolution of the perturbed flame kernel shows that laminar vortices of various sizes and vortex strengths can increase the kernel growth rate by at least a factor of 3 and significantly increase combustion reaction rates by involving additional highly curved and stretched flame fronts.