Sri Lankan food is one of Asia's best-kept secrets – bright, fiery and built around coconut, curry leaves and the freshest seafood. If you're heading to the island, here are ten dishes that capture its glorious, distinctive flavours.
The heart of Sri Lankan cooking is rice and curry – not one dish but a whole spread. A mound of rice is surrounded by small bowls: perhaps a dhal (lentil curry), a fish or chicken curry, a fiery sambol and two or three vegetable dishes.
Everything is seasoned with the island's signature roasted curry powder and plenty of coconut. Eaten by hand and endlessly varied, it's a meal you'll happily return to every day.
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Breakfast in Sri Lanka is a joy. Hoppers (appa) are bowl-shaped, bowl-crisp pancakes made from fermented rice flour and coconut milk – order an egg hopper with a runny yolk in the centre. String hoppers (idiyappam) are delicate nests of steamed rice noodles, served with dhal and coconut sambol.
Both are cheap, comforting and utterly moreish.
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Some dishes are pure Sri Lankan character:
These are the flavours that make Sri Lankan food unmistakable.
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As an island, Sri Lanka does seafood beautifully – look for jaffna crab curry, spicy prawn curries and grilled fresh fish along the coast. Inland, vegetable lovers are spoilt: dhal curry, cashew curry, jackfruit (polos) curry and stir-fried greens all sing with coconut and spice. Vegetarians eat exceptionally well here.
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Finish with something traditional: watalappan, a rich steamed pudding of jaggery, coconut and cardamom brought by the island's Malay community; curd and treacle, thick buffalo-milk yoghurt drizzled with kithul palm syrup; or a simple plate of sweet, sun-ripened mango and pineapple.
Sri Lanka's food is best discovered slowly – a family guesthouse curry, a beach shack's catch of the day, a hopper stall at dawn. On our small-group trips around the island we seek out these authentic tastes and the people who cook them. Come hungry and let us introduce you to the real flavours of Sri Lanka.
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