Talalla House Food & Cuisine 

We serve a tropical breakfast, a two course lunch and a three course dinner, every day during your stay. All meals are served at our dining table by the pool, that seats 14 guests facing the setting sun and the warm Indian ocean. ⁠A vegetarian menu is available and we have a separate menu for the kids. Go here for full board prices and booking information.
Chef Supun, and his team has more than 30 years’ experience in Sri Lankan and international dishes, and we spent years perfecting our menu to offer you the most varied experience when staying with us. Whether you are into spicy Sri Lankan curries, mild island dishes, a vegetarian or vegan feasts, we will serve food that you will have a hard time forgetting.

Sri Lankan curries and dishes date back thousands of years, with a greater diversity than any other food in the Asian region. This is due to the influence of recipes and spices brought to the island by Indians, Arabs, Malays, Portuguese, Dutch, and English. You can experience the spices up close in our garden and when the cook starts preparing your dinner in the big open kitchen. The Talalla House dishes are not overly spicy.

It was the spices that drove Western merchants across the oceans and made Sri Lanka the famous center for the spice trade. Even today Sri Lanka is a major exporter of cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, nutmeg, black pepper, and turmeric. It’s these spices, roasted or freshly ground and combined with always fresh fruits, vegetables, and greens, that give Sri Lankan food its character. You’ll never forget the slightly toasted note from the curry leaves, the vanilla-like pandan, the ultra creamy coconut milk, and the cinnamon.

Meet the true living legend of the Sri Lankan kitchen, Dr. Publis Silva from the illustrious Mt. Lavinia Hotel, and see how he makes Fish Ambul Thiyal, a dish unique to the island’s southern coast. It’s a slightly sour fish curry, mixed by hand and cooked inside a clay pot.
We visit the Dutch Burgher Union and have their signature dish, the Lamprais, prepared with samba rice cooked in stock, eggplant, malay prawn paste and a beef cutlet. It is a savory delight, wrapped inside a banana leaf. Kottu Rotti is a popular street food in Sri Lankan, made from chopped rotti (lavash bread) that comes together with beef, fish, chicken and lamb and a mixture of veggies and eggs.
Finally we visit Upali’s, and try their Jaffna Fish Head Curry. Made with pandan leaves, curry leaves, garlic, ginger and chillies over a hot pan, then blend with a bit of coconut milk to create a rich, aromatic paste.

We visit to the Horathapola Estate, a fine villa north of Colombo. The villa chef takes us on a tour of the grounds. On the menu tonight, a rich and hearty Black Pork Curry and Jackfruit Curry. Then we make our way to the paddy fields along the island’s southern coast, where we do Mackerel Fritter. We then move on to Colombo to The Ministry Of Crab where Chef Darshan, a luminary of Sri Lankan cuisine, is preparing the restaurant’s namesake dish, Black Pepper Crab. Very little frills in this recipe, but the product is truly an explosion of taste. In a village on the west coast we encounter another mainstay in the Sri Lankan cookbook, the Kiri Baath. A rice pudding made in homes all across the island. We visit the Foundation Of Goodness, a NGO helping develop local communities, to learn how to make String Hoppers.  Our last meal of the journey is Egg Hoppers. Egg hoppers are perfect for wrapping around your assortment of curries and sambols.