Restaurants in Sri Lanka
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Nescoffee
This cool and compact roadside cafe/bar is an homage to Robert Nesta Marley and has nonstop reggae beats and Ella’s coldest beer. You’ll need it for the spicy devilled cashews. Breakfast is available from early in the day, and Nescoffee stays open ‘till the last person leaves’. (Let your guest-house owner know if you’re going to be late, because some places in Ella close their doors a tad early.)
reviewed
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Gallery Cafe
The historic building that houses Gallery Cafe used to be an office for Sri Lanka’s most famous architect, Geoffrey Bawa. The open-air cafe area looks over a pebbled courtyard, while the lounge bar is where Bawa’s old office used to be – in fact, his desk is still there. The decor is stunning and the Sri Lankan–inspired dishes focus on fresh ingredients and bold, clean flavours. As a cheaper option, come for an afternoon coffee.
reviewed
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C
Green Cabin
This place is a bit of an institution in the local restaurant trade. It’s well known for both its baked goods and its inexpensive Sri Lankan, Indian and Chinese dishes. The lunchtime buffet is excellent value – the mango curry, if it’s on, is very good. For a snack try the vegetable pastries or the cardiac-arrest-inducing bacon-and-egg pies.
reviewed
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Bijou
You’ll know this place is Swiss-owned when you see fondue (advance order, Rs 2000) and other Swiss and German specialities on the menu. It mixes up such heavy dishes with a wide range of seafood.
reviewed
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E
Lords
By far Negombo’s most creative eating experience. Martin, the British owner of this half restaurant, half art gallery, brings a larger-than-life presence to the place and is a rare thing among expat restaurant owners in that he actually works on the floor and in the kitchen making sure that everything is just spot on. The food, which is so superbly prepared and presented that the thought of a free meal was enough to get the president himself to come and open the restaurant, is a hybrid of Western and Eastern flavours. The gallery displays excellent contempory work by local artists.
reviewed
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Mangos
Behind a new café that looks somewhat half-finished is a solidly built timber-roofed dining pavilion with open sides. Here you can get good rice-and-curry lunches and traditional South Indian specialities for dinner, including excellent masala dosas (dosas stuffed with spiced vegetables) cooked to order.
reviewed
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Rampart Hotel
This ancient place has an ornately carved wooden staircase that would make redevelopers drool. But you won't drool over the long menu of dull Chinese, local and Western fare served in the cavernous dining room on the 2nd floor. Rather, come here for a drink and the amazing sunset views.
reviewed
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Milano Restaurant
This restaurant has a reliable menu of Sri Lankan, Western and Chinese dishes and friendly service. Treat yourself to some sweet baked goodies and a coffee to set you up for the rest of the afternoon.
reviewed
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Sunflower Bake House
Below the hotel of the same name, this place has a range of sweet and sour pastries that make for a good breakfast and some dirt-cheap, but dirt-free, rice-and-curry lunches for Rs 80.
reviewed
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Siripala Place Surf Cafe
Right next to the spot where the fish are first hauled out of the deep blue, the seafood here is as fresh and tasty as can be. Despite the name, it’s refreshingly unsurfy.
reviewed
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Sri Vani Vilas Hotel
The Sri Vani Vilas Hotel, near the Bandarawela bus stand, is one of the places for short eats, dosas, rottis, and rice and curry.
reviewed
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Delifrance
Filling sandwiches for shoppers on the go. It’s on the ground floor of the very popular Odel Unlimited store.
reviewed
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Jade Green Tea Centre & Restaurant
Traveller-recommended spot for good local food above the Bank of Ceylon.
reviewed
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White House Restaurant
Down the street from Devon, this restaurant is tacky but cheap. It has snacks, drinks and ice cream, or you can fill up on meals such as mixed fried rice, chicken fried noodles and sweet-and-sour chicken.
reviewed
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Hill Club
Dinner at Hill Club is an event in itself. The five-course set menu focuses on hearty meals like roast beef, served, with all the trimmings, promptly at 8pm. The whole thing is carried off with faded colonial panache: gloved waiters, candles and linen tablecloths and serviettes. For the formal dining room, men must wear a tie and jacket – there are a few on hand, but they sometimes run out – or Sri Lankan national dress. Women must also be suitably attired in a dress or dress slacks. The dress code at the Hill Club’s à la carte, casual restaurant is not so strict. If you’re not staying the night here, you’ll have to pay a Rs 100 temporary joining fee. The food doesn’t liv…
reviewed
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Rawana Holiday Resort
‘See you for rice and curry at 8 o’clock’ certainly sells short one of the best eating experiences in Sri Lanka. Look forward to around eight different dishes, including sweet-and-sour eggplant, spicy potato curry, and Rawana’s signature garlic curry, made with whole cloves of the ‘stinking rose’. Wannabe vampires might want to eat elsewhere, but it’s a must-visit for everyone else. The charming owner offers cookery classes in her kitchen and provides printouts of her surprising recipes. Everything is from her organic garden nearby. You’ll need to book by midafternoon.
reviewed
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Beach Wadiya
Renowned for its seafood, Beach Wadiya has attracted a popular following for decades, including an impressive list of celebrities: Princess Anne and Richard Branson, among others. Come early to pick a table inside the weather-beaten beach shack or outside in the sand, order a chilled Three Coins beer while a waiter fills you in on the day’s catch, and receive your specially customised grilled or fried seafood platter. Reservations are recommended. Also, take care when entering the restaurant: you have to cross the railway tracks and there is no signal when trains approach.
reviewed
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Lyon Café
Among locals this is one of Kandy's most famous restaurants. There are three dining rooms, a fan-cooled room downstairs and two slightly fancier, air-con rooms on two separate floors upstairs. About two-thirds of the menu is Chinese, a third Sri Lankan, but for dinner just about everyone orders the Sino-Sinhalese 'Lyon Special', a huge platter of fried rice, boiled eggs and your choice of devilled meats.
One plate will easily feed two or three people (though that doesn't stop most Sri Lankan patrons from downing one platter each).
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Shanti Vihar
This place's deliciously spicy vegetarian food and very reasonable prices make it popular with locals and foreigners alike. It's a basic, well-worn eatery, though there is a fancier air-con section. The menu's South Indian offerings are especially good: masala dosa (curried vegetables inside a paper-thin lentil-flour pancake)for Rs 60, curd vadai (a deep-fried lentil-flour patty with yoghurt) for Rs 25 and Madras thalis for Rs 90. Shanti Vihar also has a home-delivery service.
reviewed
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Dream House
Eat alfresco while being serenaded by classical music at this authentic and truly memorable Italian restaurant. Unusually for an Italian restaurant in Asia, the chef is actually of true-blue Latin stock, which ensures the tomatoes have been placed in just the right spot and the perfect amount of fresh basil has been added. Anywhere else in Unawatuna positively fades in comparison to here, but what’s most surprising is the price – it’s an undisputed bargain.
reviewed
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Kandy Muslim Hotel
No, it’s not a hotel, but it is an always bustling eatery that offers Kandy’s best samosas, authentically spiced curries and heaving plates of frisbee-sized, but gossamer-light, naan. It’s a largely male domain, but women travellers will be treated with respect and offered a seat in the family section out the back. Don’t miss the frantic theatre of the kotthu rotti (doughy pancake chopped and fried with meat and vegetables) guy out the front.
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Serendipity Arts Cafe
This photo-crammed hole-in-the-wall cafe has a fusion menu that includes Western sandwiches and Eastern curries, brilliant juices and shakes, bacon-and-egg hoppers and proper filter coffee. They claim that some of the recipes are generation’s old family secrets – though we’re assured that the ingredients aren’t as old! It’s an ideal place for lunch or breakfast. The cafe is owned and run by Juliet Coombe and her husband.
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History Restaurant
With dishes from India, Italy, Thailand and Sri Lanka, this place could almost be called ‘Geography’. The food’s OK and there’s a good selection of booze, but the real reason to go are the interesting B&W pics of old Kandy. And no, you’re not required to take notes during the Kandyan history PowerPoint presentation that runs silently in the background. Monkeys look on from outside and already know all the answers.
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Bake House
Downstairs from The Pub (opposite), Bake House is versatility plus, with tasty baked goodies out the front and a more formal dining room concealed under the building’s whitewashed colonial arches. At the time of research, a makeover was being planned to up the ‘colonial’ spin of the architecture. Pop in just after 3pm, when the second bake of the day comes out and the short eats are still warm.
reviewed
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RN Buffet & Take Away
This superclean little eatery above a grocery shop offers a six-dish lunch buffet that’s not excessively spiced. Unfortunately, military restrictions in the neighbourhood mean it’s closed in the evenings. The restaurant also does a mean line in savoury pastries and cold drinks. It’s run by a delightful English-speaking couple who get their inspiration from a Delia Smith recipe book!
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