UK Edition
William Sitwell reviews Kolamba East, London: ‘A menu of brilliant originality and colour’
Dishing up butter-drenched soft shell crab and exceptional curry, this Sri Lankan gem stands out among London’s numerous Asian restaurants
Blossom Street is a calm alleyway in London’s Spitalfields where redeveloped 19th-century warehouses abut modern buildings and townhouses from the Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian periods. It seems a marvel of urban planning. In fact there was a hell of a battle to get this far, decades of wrangling among landowners and architects, residents and historians, politicians and councils. All that while neighbouring 201 Bishopsgate and The Broadgate Tower edged upwards ever closer to the clouds.
Perhaps those triumphant or sore should coalesce in Kolamba East, revel in the Sri Lankan food and let bygones be bygones. If they still can’t see eye to eye, they’ll at least leave agreeing on one thing: that Kolamba East delivers furiously good flavour with curries and grilled dishes of revelatory balance and complexity.
This is the second Kolamba, the first being in Soho. So perhaps if all goes to plan there’ll be Kolambas to the north, south and west. If you ever hear news of that, take it from me, this is a good thing, something every resident, town planner and designer should do their utmost to usher in. Kolamba East manages to distinguish itself from the vast hordes of Asian restaurants across Britain with their ubiquitous menus, where you can turn up for a cuzza and order the same thing you always do.
Within this restaurant, among those warehousey brick walls, concrete beams and exposed pipes, in a dining room that wraps around a central bar – where you can sit high and drink or dine – you’ll meet a menu of brilliant originality and colour.
We started munching on spicy cashew nuts and broken pieces of pappadums (split before frying? I don’t know) with just the one condiment: a rich, very thickly cut and dark mango chutney.
Then from a tightly written menu – starters, large plates, sambols (Sri Lankan relishes) and sides, and ‘for the table’ sharing plates – we started with soft shell crab. It came gloriously drenched in butter and sprinkled with green chilli and spring onions, which further elevated the wonder of such a crab (who forgets the moment they lost their soft shell crab virginity… ‘You mean you eat all of it, every bit?’). Think crunch and crab, and lime and spice.
Alongside this merriment were a pair of lamb chops covered in the hot curry powder mix of Jaffna, which takes its name from the country’s most northern city. The chops were nicely pink and tender and the heat not too overpowering to enjoy the fragrant lamb.
Then came the central dishes of dinner: curry, dhal, sambol, rice and roti, dishes that in so many places leave no trace in the memory. Not at Kolamba East. We had ‘tamarind chicken’, a red curry that came in a rusty brown-coloured dish with the chicken stewed in spice and other gubbins with fried curry leaves on top. It sang and danced with complexity: rich but not heavy, spicy but not swamping.
We had ‘dhal with spinach’, which was an understatement. The wet and soothing yellow lentils were under a pile of nuts and garlic and corn, yet such was the dextrous cooking, eating it was far from wading through a pond, more a revelatory exploration through a temple where each doorway led to a room of further riches.
There was decent yellow rice too, a coconut sambol for refreshing sprinkles and, novel to me, bread of pol roti. Unlike any ‘bread’ I’ve had, it’s a cake-like form of coconut, onion and flour, and provided yet another level of fascinating texture.
For exceptional curry, sweet service and an excellent wine list, Kolamba East merits more high fives from me than I have hands.