18/03/2026
It’s late evening at Galle Face, the modern facade of urban Sri Lanka. Located at the heart of the commercial capital of Colombo. The sea is dark, the wind carries the smell of salt, and somewhere down the line of carts a man is dropping batter into hot oil.
The sound comes first! That sharp hiss when the isso wadey hits the pan. A few minutes later, someone hands you a paper plate, it’s a hot dhal fritter, 2-3 prawns on top, chopped onions, green chilli, and lime squeezed over the whole thing.
You take a bite while standing by the ocean.
It’s messy, crunchy, it’s perfect.
My oldest memories of visiting Galle Face are tied up with Isso Wadey. Food has a strange way of holding on to memories, history, and culture.
Long after buildings disappear and borders change, the food remains, quietly carrying pieces of the past.
Some might look simple, but behind it lies centuries of trade, migration, colonisation, improvisation, and survival. In Sri Lanka, this is especially true.
What we eat today is not just the story of a cook or a chef. It’s the story of an island that has been visited, traded with, conquered, and reshaped for centuries.
You can taste it if you pay attention.
In a spoonful of pol sambol (spicy coconut relish) there is the Portuguese introduction of chillies to Asia. In a plate of lamprais (Dutch Burgher rice baked in banana leaf) there is the legacy of colonial kitchens trying to recreate European comfort food with local ingredients.
Even the everyday rice and curry is less a recipe and more a living archive of regional cooking traditions that evolved over generations.
But something else is happening today.
The food many of us grew up with, the flavours that defined childhood are slowly changing, disappearing, or being reinvented.
The roadside stalls that used to sell Highland Milk Bottles & Saruwath (rose syrup drinks with Basil seeds) now compete with bubble tea shops and cafes. The bakeries that once smelled of butter cake and freshly baked buns now stock donuts & cheesecake.
Some of these changes are exciting. Others feel like we are quietly forgetting something. And nostalgia has a way of creeping in when that happens.
You start remembering the string hoppers your grandmother served before school.
The late-night kottu that somehow tastes better at midnight than it ever does during the day.
Food becomes memory.
But the story of Sri Lankan food isn’t just about the past.
Across the island, a new generation of cooks and chefs are beginning to ask different questions.
What happens when traditional dishes are reinterpreted? Where are the authentic ingredients, and what replaced them? When can we push Sri Lankan Food forward?
From small kitchens to ambitious restaurants, chefs are beginning to explore the possibilities of Sri Lankan cuisine in new ways, elevating familiar dishes, rediscovering regional traditions, and presenting the food of the island with a confidence that feels long overdue.
For years, I’ve been documenting stories as a filmmaker/Storyteller, travelling, filming, talking to farmers, and sitting down at tables across Sri Lanka.
What interests me most isn’t just what people cook.
It’s how food changes over time.
How colonial kitchens shaped local dishes, how migration influenced flavour, how street food evolved, how nostalgia reshapes what we think of as authentic.
And how a new generation is beginning to reimagine Sri Lankan food for the future.
This publication is where I want to explore those stories.
The past: the histories hidden inside familiar dishes.
The present: the food culture shaping the island today.
And the future: the cooks and chefs pushing Sri Lankan cuisine to the next level.
Because food is never just food.
It’s history you can taste.
And every dish, no matter how ordinary it seems, carries a story worth telling.
