Sri Lankan Cuisine

About Sri Lankan Cuisine

By the ULTIMATE Sri Lanka Editorial Team

Regional Editor, South Asia: Tara de la Motte

Are you planning a trip to Sri Lanka and wondering what to order? This is our guide to the island’s cooking, from the spices and the larder to the dishes worth seeking out and where to taste them.

Sri Lankan cuisine

Sri Lankan cuisine is a vibrant, deeply aromatic tradition shaped by the island’s tropical geography, its historic role in the spice trade and its rich cultural diversity. It is centred on rice and coconut, with complex, fiery spice profiles that set it apart from the neighbouring cuisines of South Asia.

Key defining elements

Four things give Sri Lankan cooking its character, and once you know them you will taste them in almost every dish.

Rice and coconut at the heart, with spice blends roasted dark and deep.

Unique spice blends

The island’s own true cinnamon (Cinnamomum verum) leads the way, with black pepper, lemongrass and pandan leaves. Spice powders are often roasted until deep and dark, which gives many curries their distinctive colour and intense, robust flavour.

Maldive fish

Cured, sun-dried tuna, flaked or pounded, is the foundation of a great deal of Sri Lankan cooking: a spoonful adds a savoury depth to vegetable dishes and sambols.

Goraka

Goraka (Garcinia cambogia) is a small fruit whose dried rind, dark and almost black, brings a sharp, fruity sourness, especially to fish and seafood dishes.

Coconut, everywhere

Coconut is used in every form: freshly grated, as thick coconut milk that gives curries their body, and as coconut oil for tempering spices.

Iconic dishes to try

Order these and you will have eaten your way through the island’s repertoire, from the everyday lunch to the festive pudding.

Staples and curries: rice and curry

The fundamental daily meal: a mound of red or white rice, sometimes an heirloom variety, surrounded by several small curries of vegetables, lentils and meat or seafood, with a sambol and crisp papadums. Each dish is modest on its own; mixed together with your fingers or a spoon, they make the meal.

Fish ambul thiyal

A dry, sour fish curry, usually of tuna, cooked with plenty of black pepper and goraka. The souring and the dry cooking once preserved the fish for days; today it is prized for its deep, tangy flavour.

Polos curry

A rich curry of young green jackfruit, which soaks up the spices and turns tender, with a texture so substantial that it is often compared to meat.

Breads and bakes: hoppers (appa)

Bowl-shaped pancakes of fermented rice flour and coconut milk, crisp and lacy at the edges and soft in the middle. Ask for an egg hopper, with a whole egg cooked in the base, and eat it with a fiery sambol.

String hoppers (idiyappam)

Steamed nests of fine rice-flour noodles, traditionally served with kiri hodi, a gentle coconut-milk gravy, and spicy relishes.

Street food: kottu roti

Theatrical street food: flaky godamba roti chopped on a hot griddle with vegetables, egg and meat and a rich, aromatic gravy. You will hear the rhythmic clatter of the steel blades long before you see the stall.

Sambols and relishes: pol sambola

A fiery raw relish of freshly grated coconut, dried red chillies, red onion, lime juice and Maldive fish, pounded together. It goes with almost everything, from hoppers to rice and curry.

Dessert: watalappan

A rich, set custard of coconut milk and eggs, sweetened with kithul jaggery, made from the sap of the kithul palm, and spiced with cardamom, nutmeg and cloves.

Where to taste it

In Colombo, Nuga Gama and Upali’s by Nawaloka lay out village-style spreads of rice and curry, sambols and sweets, a fine way to taste many dishes at once; Palmyrah is the place for the darker, roasted spice blends of Jaffna; and for the island’s famous crab, Ministry of Crab. Hoppers and kottu are best at busy evening stalls, cooked in front of you.

Our advice: eat rice and curry at lunchtime, when it is freshest; try hoppers in the evening, when they are made to order; and ask for “less spicy” if you need to, because the heat is real.

Opening hours, prices and seasonal openings change, so please check with Sri Lankan Cuisine before you go.