- Familiar Lankan flavours with a twist
Ceylon Curry Club at the Dutch Hospital Precinct has quite the reputation. Serving up a solid Sri Lankan food experience, last year, it was invited twice to cater at the wedding celebrations of Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant, garnering rave reviews from guests both times.
The Sunday Morning Brunch recently stopped by Ceylon Curry Club to sample some of its menu’s mainstays. The restaurant itself is one of those places that manages to feel both comfortably familiar and quietly ambitious. An old-fashioned industrial spice grinder in the dining area lets you know curry is its speciality, and the menu shows you that it is much more than just rice and curry.
Things like curried beef Wellington, brinjal moju ravioli, and crab cobbler, and of course its hopper experience offer unique options for people who are not looking for rice. You also have rice dishes like the Ceylon Curry Club’s signature lamprais, as well as local favourites like kottu, ambul thiyal, and seafood platters.
On weekdays, you can also choose from its ‘Curry in a Hurry’ menu which gives you a proper Sri Lankan lunch without a long wait.
Everything ties back to the Sri Lankan spirit, from the ingredients to the dishes to even the beverages. The signature cocktails use local ingredients like local infusions and spices to create new twists on classic cocktails, and the menu also suggests pairings with various local arracks for the main dishes.
We popped in for lunch and a focal point of our meal was a selection of hoppers from the hopper cart – a nice little show as they are made tableside. Service too was warm and attentive, with Manager Nishantha checking in and sharing a few stories, including the time they catered for the Ambanis as well as when the restaurant hosted multiple Australian ‘MasterChef’ judges.
The hoppers were excellent: crisp edges, soft centres, and a choice of fillings from classic egg to coconut milk, prawn, and chicken. It came with dhal, katta sambol, and seeni sambol, each of which were done well and complemented the range of hoppers.
One of the more surprising dishes we sampled was the manioc cutlet. It looks like your average fish cutlet, but it’s made entirely with manioc and has this subtle, almost South Indian spice profile. Paired with a coconut chutney, it was unexpectedly good and definitely something we would order again.
The seafood platter was another crowd-pleaser – grilled tuna, prawns, calamari, and salaya. Not too spicy, which made it accessible, but still flavourful. The tempered onion sambol that came with it was a nice touch.
We also tried the Ceylon Curry Club lamprais, which was bursting with flavour and offered a generous helping (be warned, though, that this is a Sri Lankan interpretation of a lamprais and is not a strictly faithful rendition of the Dutch recipe).
We finished the curry extravaganza with two standout desserts. The baked curd, which comes with kithul treacle, is made from curd, condensed milk, and cream, which is combined and baked and feels like a luxe upgrade to the traditional curd and treacle. The coconut crème brûlée was delicate, not too sweet, and had just the right crackle on top.
All in all, Ceylon Curry Club is the kind of place you would take out-of-towners for a taste of Sri Lanka, or, as a Sri Lankan, come back to when you are craving something Sri Lankan, be it authentic or with a twist.
Info box
Ceylon Curry Club is open daily for lunch from 11 a.m. to 3.30 p.m. and for dinner from 6 p.m. to 10.30 p.m. (till 11 p.m. on weekends)
For reservations, call +94 77 339 3391
PHOTOS VENURA CHANDRAMALITHA