A favourite of the Sri Lankan community, this bright purple-and-green café started life in Wembley over a decade ago, before moving to larger premises in Harrow. Its Wembley namesake is no relation. Gana offers a mind-boggling choice of dishes cooked in the style of Jaffna in northern Sri Lanka, where seafood abounds and the flavours are more similar to south India than anywhere else. Kool, a shellfish soup from the region, makes a rare appearance here; as do rabbit, venison and lamb’s intestines in different guises, ranging from fried to curried. Vegetable curries are available in red or white versions (spicy tomato-based or milder coconut-sauced,) as are hoppers, made from red or white rice. Vendhaya kuzhambu is a stand-out — another rarity in London, it’s a fabulous fenugreek seed curry, its bitterness mellowed by coconut milk. 

The Eastcote branch of this contemporary restaurant is attractively done up with framed pictures, flowers and wooden furniture reminiscent of a Sri Lankan family home. The menu is imaginative, based on the Sri Lankan-born chef’s own family recipes. Beautifully presented short eats come accented with cassava and wrapped in filo pastry; devilled dishes are perked up with an extra oomph. The Dutch-Sri Lankan classic lamprais here features rice with meat curry, green jackfruit curry, aubergine pickle, seeni sambal (caramelised onion relish), boiled egg and fish cutlet served on a banana leaf. There’s a notably good choice of vegetarian dishes, including savoury urad lentil and spinach vadai, and a beautifully complex tamarind-laced yam curry. Also spiced with own-made curry powder are chicken curries (on the bone and boneless), mutton-on-the-bone curry, and a sharp, spicy coastal speciality made from squid. Watalappan, a traditional egg and coconut milk custard with nuts, is dense with the distinctive flavour of palm jaggery and perfumed with cardamom and nutmeg.   

Yaalu Yalu? There’s also hathu & batu, hoiya hoya and sticky picky on the menu here — and that’s just the starters. This stylish, unconventional Croydon gem serves attractively presented, modern Sri Lankan food. Many come a long way for the lamprais: here, it’s banana leaf-wrapped rice with fish cutlet, pickled aubergines, onion sambal, seasoned cashews, plantain chips, fried eggs, and a choice of black pork curry or tamarind chicken. There’s also a rich but homely lotus root curry in coconut milk served with ‘red raw rice’ (i.e. not par-boiled), whole seabass baked in banana leaves, slow-cooked goat stew and spicy wild boar. The restaurant offers a rare chance to taste kiri pani in London: a creamy buffalo milk yoghurt pudding topped with palm jaggery syrup. 

Another brightly coloured, long-established Sri Lankan community favourite — don’t fall foul of the demure exterior: the food here is properly punchy. Avoid generic Indian items on its vast menu, and opt for a great range of fiery devilled dishes; or short eats like mutton roti and fish roll. These are tapas-style snacks served in Sri Lanka’s roadside cafés, beach huts and toddy tavern,; often huddled inside a layer of mashed potato, then bread-crumbed and fried. There’s a great choice of kothu, too — stir-fried meat, vegetables, eggs and spices — with either godamba roti (flatbreads), idiyappam (string hoppers) or puttu (steamed rice cake logs). Not to be missed are two of the capital’s best Sri Lankan food shops: Bestfoods next door, and Ganapathy across the road, that sell groceries like orange-hued king coconuts, banana flowers, Madras cucumbers, speciality baked goods, and dozens of varieties of rice in every shade of red.   

This is Sri Lanka via east London, generously infused as it is with the spirit of both. The café and bakery mini-chain started a few years ago, but has only recently taken owner Rob Green’s work in Sri Lanka as an influence for its cookery. The bakery sells freshly made, fragrant turmeric, cinnamon and cardamom buns in its smaller shops, while the bright, airy café in Victoria Park supplements a small but superb selection of Sri Lankan-inspired brunches. Egg hoppers come with Cornish mackerel, and string hoppers with egg curry. There’s always a tasty dal and coconut sambal on the side.  The entire cafe is meat-free as of last year.

Perched on a busy intersection, this small, new venue is on the former site of Sekara, the Hoppers of its day. Well, not quite — but 15 years ago, most Londoners knew of only one Sri Lankan restaurant, though many couldn’t remember its name and referred to it as “that smart Sri Lankan near Victoria.” It wasn’t particularly smart, and neither is this — though the word can loosely describe a white table-clothed venue that’s not particularly cheap and cheerful. Here there’s a standard menu of good hoppers served with curries, and godamba roti with a choice of dal, curry or sambal. A few surprises include devilled wild boar, seerfish curry made from the mackerel-like fish, and a mellow, green chilli-laced kiri hodi, in which the ubiquitous coconut gravy is improved by the addition of eggs. Sekara was renowned for its Sunday buffets and — although this restaurant has a different ownership — it has continued the tradition.  

Part of the Sambal Express chain of no-frills grocers and fast food joints located across the capital, this small café sits next to its South Harrow branch. It’s popular with expats, who come for the Sri Lankan dosas with eggs, chicken or mutton, poriyals (sautéed vegetable dishes) with anchovies, curries served with red rice puttu, and Sri Lankan Muslim biryanis. To drink, there’s nelli crush, the signature fruit cordial of Jaffna made from local gooseberries, a small range of Sri Lankan spiced teas, and sukku coffee made with dried ginger and coriander seeds that’s hard to find elsewhere in London.