• A chat with Tash De Silva of The ‘Stache 

Brunch, for those of you not in the know, is that magical midday-ish meal that is a bit too late for breakfast but also too early for lunch – when breakfast meets lunch. At The Sunday Morning Brunch, for obvious reasons, we take the concept of brunch quite seriously, especially on Sundays. 

The magic of brunch as a meal is multifaceted. If you’re one of the party types, it hits the spot when you’re recovering after a late night out. If you’re more someone who likes a lazy Sunday, brunch allows you to hang out with family and friends, eat well, and still have plenty of time for a nap or run errands as opposed to a traditional lunchtime gathering. 

Of late, Colombo has seen something of a boom in its brunch culture, with cafes and restaurants with brunch menus coming up more and more frequently. One of the newest brunch spots to have opened its doors to great buzz is The ‘Stache. Launched by Tash De Silva of Tosakanth’s Roast Paan fame in April this year, The ‘Stache’s home is in what used to be The Sugar Shack (which used to be run by Tash’s sister Aru). 

In the months since its opening, The ‘Stache has seen quite a big amount of hype online, mostly because of its unique dishes, which like Tosakanth, boasts a fusion of Sri Lankan flavours with international influences. This got us thinking, with a brunch culture taking root across Colombo, and even outside it in spots like Galle and Hiriketiya, what does it take for a business to be able to define itself in that space? Brunch sat down with Tash to discuss.

Lankan brunch culture

“Brunch culture is definitely now a culture – you’ve got a lot of cafes around now. Whether you call it brunch or not, technically it is brunch,” Tash shared, adding that when it came to brunch, most people thought that brunch was only for the weekend, especially Sunday, but that this was no longer the case, using the case of The ‘Stache as an example, as well as all the other cafes that offered food that was neither typically breakfast or lunch. 

With The ‘Stache, for instance, which is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday to Sunday, Tuesday is in fact one of its busiest days of the week, despite it not being a ‘traditional’ day for brunch (the weekends are of course, incredibly busy, but Tash noted that when she started The ‘Stache, she did not expect weekdays, and especially Tuesdays, to be as busy as they had turned out to be. In contrast, she described Fridays as being something of a “chill day”). 

What got Tash herself into launching a brunch restaurant? “I’m not sure, honestly. I’ve always wanted to have a proper restaurant. As a kid, I always dreamt of opening a themed restaurant, but more for dinner, not really a brunch thing. But then I saw a lot of coffee shops and cafes around, and they’re always quite busy – there’s a lot of people patronising them. They’re clearly doing something right and there is a market for something unique in that space,” she said, adding, “Breakfast and brunch also sounded cooler and nicer. There was no strong logic behind it. I wanted to do something totally different from Tosakanth’s Roast Paan.” 

Tosakanth’s Roast Paan, which Tash launched in 2015, was also a very unique food business when it first started out, offering roast paan sandwiches with various meat and vegetable fillings paired with different non-traditional sauces and and ingredients. 

“People who know Tosakanth’s Roast Paan might identify that The ‘Stache’s logo has the same moustache from the Tosakanth’s Roast Paan logo, but regardless, The ‘Stache is a totally different identity – a new brand. I debated for a while about the best name for this brand. I came up with some crazy ones too. In the end, a friend came up with ‘Stache. It also gave me room to give dishes names like a ‘stache of pancakes’ and it was a different identity to Tosakanth, but also kind of related in a way.” 

Tash also credits the fact that The ‘Stache is an entirely different brand with some of the buzz that has surrounded it since its launch, since there will always be more buzz around something new than an extension to an older brand. Of course, she also noted that its relation to Tosakanth’s Roast Paan, both in terms of ownership and proximity (since The ‘Stache is in what used to be The Sugar Shack, Tosakanth shares an outdoor space with The ‘Stache), had also contributed to The ‘Stache’s success, with older customers discovering The ‘Stache through visiting Tosakanth and vice versa.

The ‘Stache

As a restaurant, The ‘Stache has a very casual vibe and offers a small but extensively curated menu that blends local flavours and ingredients with international influences. 

Some of The ‘Stache’s brunch dishes with a twist include: the Siam Ceylon – milky kiribath with Thai red curry, fried seeni sambol, and chilli jam bacon ends (bacon optional); the Lankan Benny – pol roti inspired breakfast muffins with poached eggs, seeni sambol, and curry hollandaise sauce; and the Ceylon Turkish Eggs – labneh, poached eggs, and parippu thel dala served with garlic butter roast paan. 

The driving force behind starting up The ‘Stache was her sister Aru deciding to move abroad and shutting down her business The Sugar Shack to do so. “The space became vacant, and I decided we should do it now. The space is available and I needed to take my journey to the next level. I can’t do just Tosakanth forever. I’d been thinking of doing a breakfast/brunch style situation for a while, and I decided to go ahead,” Tash explained.

“I saw this consultant chef online who was doing great combinations, and I wanted to do something special for the Sri Lankan palate. The majority of the current brunch options are Western – they’re bland. There’s nothing that caters towards the Sri Lankan palate. Even with Tosakanth, a Western-Lankan fusion worked well.” 

Embarking on this journey alone was initially daunting for Tash, but it was something that, despite ominous predictions about the country and the economy, she had to do. “My sister was supposed to help at the start but she moved before I started, so I went into it alone with the support of my mom and did up the kitchen and everything,” Tash shared. “We didn’t hire anyone to do it. We just put it together with our existing knowledge of the food industry.” 

Tash then went about transforming the old Sugar Shack space into what would become The ‘Stache. The interior overhaul took on a dark greyish purple, introduced elements of teal, and incorporated a garden-like greenery aesthetic, effectively eliminating the need for the previous showcases. Tables replaced the showcases, expanding the seating capacity.

Starting off the operation was difficult, especially getting her team up to scratch with timing, preparation, and ensuring that they understood the flavours and concept of the dishes. Tash shared that they had prepared many iterations of each dish in order to be sure that the kitchen team could execute them properly. She even postponed the opening. 

“I didn’t want to open until they were ready, because if we started and the food was mediocre, word of mouth really changes the game for you, and to get back out of that would be really hard,” Tash explained. In the end, The ‘Stache held a soft opening, which went really well and helped them build confidence and slowly expand operations. 

Making it as a food business

Much of the buzz around The ‘Stache has been online, and Tash explained that this was not the result of a clever marketing strategy, but rather was organic and came from focusing on the food itself and delivering a memorable experience at the restaurant. 

“I made the Instagram page and started following people to create a little buzz and pop up on people’s radars that something new is coming. We didn’t do a lot of posts about the food. Occasionally we’d do some stories,” she shared. “My sister managed social media and began posting every couple of days and forming a grid, but ultimately, once people started coming, they automatically put our food up on their stories, and we didn’t need to post on our own grid as often because there were stories that we could share. We didn’t do any sponsored posts. We’ve grown organically through word of mouth.”

With the food, Tash shared that part of why she chose to work with a consultant chef was because she wanted to make The ‘Stache’s dishes as nice as possible, especially in terms of preparation. “You eat with your eyes first, and then you taste. I spend most of the time in the kitchen doing the plating and monitoring the dishes going out,” she said, adding, “I feel that has helped with our organic growth. People think it’s beautiful when you leave the plate and go ‘Wow!’ just looking at it.” 

And this, Tash shared, was ultimately what she thought made a food business stand out from the rest; in terms of both the quality of the food and how it looks, the possibilities for how a food business can make this their own are endless. 

“You really have to do something different that no one else is doing. That doesn’t mean you need to try too hard and go to extremes. But even if it is something small, do something that is unique to you, something that people will automatically associate with you,” Tash shared, adding that even if a business was offering a burger, it was important to see how it could make that burger different from what everyone else was offering – how customers could only get that specific burger only from your business. 

“For us, what has happened is that there’s some spice in it. Even if it is our version of the Eggs Benedict, rather than it being bland like the traditional Eggs Benedict, our one has a little bit of Sri Lankan-ness to it – all our dishes do, whether they’re Western or Eastern, and I think that’s important. Do a flavour that is specific to you or that they can only find at your place.”