Sri Lankan and Tamil cooking in London is concentrated in two places: Tooting in the south, and the corridor that runs east from East Ham through Ilford. The dish that tells you whether a kitchen is Sri Lankan rather than Indian is not the hopper. It is rice and curry, a plate with one portion of rice and five or six small bowls around it.
Most visitors meet this food by accident, in a room whose sign says "Indian and Sri Lankan" and whose menu runs to eight pages. That is a shame, because the two cuisines are genuinely different, and the difference is easy to taste once you know what to order. Our guide to Indian food in London explains the dosa, the thali and the regional map; our page on Brick Lane and the curry trade explains the British curry house. This page is about the Sri Lankan side: the seasoning, the plate, the snack counter by the door, and the two neighbourhoods where the community shops rather than the ones where it advertises.
Where to start
- South London
- Tooting High Street, between Tooting Broadway station and Colliers Wood. Northern line, Zone 3
- East London
- High Street North in East Ham through to Ilford Lane and Cranbrook Road. District, Hammersmith & City and Elizabeth lines, Zones 3-4
- Also
- Harrow, Wembley, Croydon, Wallington, Mitcham and Wimbledon Park all have Tamil kitchens serving residents
- Central London
- Four sit-down Sri Lankan rooms in Zone 1, at Zone 1 prices
- Order first
- Rice and curry, and whatever is in the glass case by the till
The seasonings that make it a different cuisine
Four things separate a Sri Lankan kitchen from an Indian one, and all four are on the plate rather than in the history books.
Roasted curry powder. Sri Lankan cooks dark-roast their coriander, cumin and fennel before grinding them, which turns the powder almost black and gives the meat curries a smoky, bitter edge. A "black pork curry" is not a translation error.
Coconut, in three forms. Thick first-pressing milk, thinner second-pressing milk, and freshly grated flesh, which is mixed raw with chilli, lime and onion to make pol sambol. That red-flecked pile of coconut on the side of the plate is not a garnish. It is one of the dishes.
Sourness from fruit rather than yoghurt. Goraka, a dried segment of a sour tropical fruit, and tamarind do the work that cream and yoghurt do further north. Very little Sri Lankan food is creamy.
Maldive fish. Rock-hard cured tuna, shaved or pounded into sambols, dhal and vegetable dishes to add depth. It matters practically: a dish described as vegetable may contain fish, which is a real problem if you have a fish allergy rather than a preference. Our guide to eating out with a food allergy in Britain explains what a restaurant here is obliged to tell you.
Rice and curry, and what actually lands on the table
Order rice and curry and you are not ordering one curry. You are ordering a plate of rice with a set of small bowls: a meat or fish curry, a dhal, one or two vegetable curries, a sambol, and often a fried extra such as papadam or crisp-fried aubergine in sweet-sour sauce. It is meant to be mixed together in small combinations with the fingers of your right hand, a few mouthfuls at a time, not eaten bowl by bowl.
Two things surprise people. The first is the quantity: this is one of the best-value plates of food in London, and one person often cannot finish it. The second is that the bowls are refilled in some places at no charge, which is why the portions look small when they arrive.
Heat is the other difference. Sri Lankan food is hotter than most British curry-house food as standard, and the chilli sits in the background of nearly everything rather than being confined to a hot dish. Asking for it mild is normal and nobody minds. Rice tempers it better than bread does.
The hopper is an evening dish, not a lunch dish. Hoppers and kothu are made to order on a curved pan or a flat griddle, and many kitchens only fire those up from about 17:00. At lunchtime the same room will be serving rice and curry from trays, which is the better thing to eat anyway, and cheaper.
Short eats: the glass case by the till
Every Tamil and Sri Lankan cafe in London has a counter near the door with a heated glass case on it, and this is the cheapest good food in the city. The category is called short eats, and it exists because bus conductors, mill workers and shopkeepers needed something they could eat standing up.
- Mutton roll. Spiced minced lamb and potato wrapped in a thin pancake, breadcrumbed and fried. The single most useful thing to know on this page.
- Fish cutlet. A breadcrumbed ball of curried fish and potato, hotter than it looks.
- Vadai. A savoury lentil fritter, sometimes with whole chillies and curry leaves through it. Eaten with a chutney if you ask.
- Patties. Small folded pastries, usually fish or potato.
- String hoppers. Nests of steamed rice-flour noodles, sold cold in stacks of ten to be reheated at home with a curry.
These are sold by the piece and priced in small change rather than in pounds. Our estimate in September 2026 is roughly £1 to £2.50 for a roll or a cutlet, with a bag of four or five coming to under £10 in the outer boroughs and more in the centre. Two of them and a plain tea is a perfectly good breakfast, and one of the better cheap lunches in our round-up of eating cheaply in London.
Tooting High Street, which is not the same street as Upper Tooting Road
Tooting's South Asian food is usually described as one strip, but it divides at the station. North of Tooting Broadway, Upper Tooting Road leans Pakistani and South Indian, and our neighbourhood guide to Tooting and the Indian food page between them cover it. South of the station, Tooting High Street running towards Colliers Wood is where the Sri Lankan Tamil kitchens are, mixed in with phone shops and fabric shops.
Three that have been trading there for years and hold a current hygiene rating of 3 or better: Banana Leaf at 190 Tooting High Street, which older listings still call Apollo Banana Leaf and which does the fuller sit-down version; Dosa N Chutney at number 68, which is the cheap end and very good at it; and Jaffna House at number 90, named after the Tamil capital in the north of Sri Lanka. All three are within about six minutes' walk of Tooting Broadway station, which is on the Northern line's Morden branch, so the Northern line guide is the one to read for the journey out.
Several of these rooms do not serve alcohol. Some will let you bring your own and charge a small corkage; ask before you arrive with a bottle. Tooting Market and the covered market opposite it are worth twenty minutes either side of the meal.
East Ham to Ilford, the east London end
The east London trade is spread along a longer line and is more about shops than restaurants. High Street North in East Ham, then Romford Road, then Ilford Lane and the southern end of Cranbrook Road, hold Tamil grocers, fish shops, sweet shops and gold shops serving a large resident population. The Kerala kitchens around Green Street are covered elsewhere on the site; the Sri Lankan Tamil side of the same corridor sits further east, and many of its butchers are halal, as our guide to halal food in London explains.
Banana Leaf has two Ilford addresses, on Cranbrook Road and on Ley Street, both currently rated 5. Elizabeth line trains reach Ilford in about twenty minutes from Liverpool Street, which makes this the quickest of the outer clusters to get to from the City; see our Elizabeth line guide for how the stopping pattern works.
Check the rating in the window before you sit down. Hygiene ratings on this corridor vary sharply from door to door, and we found kitchens rated 1 and 2 trading a few doors from kitchens rated 5. The green-and-black sticker in the window carries the score, and the Food Standards Agency search gives it for any address in England. We do not name anywhere rated below 3.
The other clusters, and why they are where they are
Search the food-hygiene register for Sri Lankan restaurants in London and the addresses land in Harrow, Wembley, Croydon, Wallington, Sutton, Mitcham, New Malden and Wimbledon Park. Almost none are in Zone 1. These are places where families live, which is why the food is cheaper and the rooms are plainer than in the centre.
If you are already heading to one of those areas, look for a Tamil bakery rather than a restaurant: the counter trade is the best of it. Our guides to Harrow on the Hill and Croydon cover what else is there, and Korean food in New Malden explains the other community that shares that particular suburb.
One evening, Zone 1: the four central rooms
Hoppers, a group that has been cooking Sri Lankan and South Indian food in London since 2015, now has four sites: Frith Street in Soho, Wigmore Street in Marylebone, Pancras Square at King's Cross and Shoreditch High Street. All four currently hold a rating of 4 or 5. Kolamba, on Kingly Street off Carnaby Street, is the other well-established central option. Both are proper restaurants with a wine list and a service charge, and both cost several times what Tooting costs for food that is different rather than better.
They are worth it in one situation: you have a single evening, you are staying centrally, and you want to taste the range in one sitting rather than commit to one plate. If you have an afternoon spare instead, go to Tooting. For what a Zone 1 dinner does to a day's budget, see what a day in London costs.
What to buy in a Tamil grocer
The grocers are the reason to make the trip even if you do not plan to cook. Look for roasted curry powder in unmarked bags, dried goraka, jaggery in solid blocks, kithul treacle for pouring over buffalo curd, and Ceylon tea sold loose by the kilo for a fraction of what a tin costs in a department store. Our page on souvenirs worth buying covers what survives a flight home, and UK customs allowances explains what you can carry the other way.
Sri Lankan arrack, a spirit distilled from coconut flower sap, appears on the central restaurant lists and occasionally in the off-licences on these streets. It is closer to a light rum than to anything else, and it is usually drunk long with ginger beer.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Sri Lankan and Indian food?
Sri Lankan cooks dark-roast their spices before grinding them, use coconut in three separate forms in a single meal, take their sourness from dried fruit and tamarind rather than yoghurt, and add shavings of cured Maldive fish to many dishes. The result is hotter, less creamy and more sour than the food of a British curry house.
Where is the Sri Lankan area of London?
There are two. Tooting High Street in the south, a few minutes from Tooting Broadway station on the Northern line, and the corridor running east from East Ham through Romford Road to Ilford Lane and Cranbrook Road. Harrow, Wembley, Croydon and New Malden have smaller clusters serving residents.
Is Sri Lankan food vegetarian-friendly?
Very, but with one warning. Whole sections of the menu contain no meat, and dhal, coconut sambol and vegetable curries are the backbone of the cuisine. However, cured Maldive fish is a common seasoning in dishes that read as vegetable, so say clearly that you eat no fish. Our guide to London for vegetarians covers asking the question well.
How much should a Sri Lankan meal in London cost?
In Tooting or Ilford, a full rice-and-curry plate with a drink is one of the cheapest sit-down meals in the city, and short eats from the counter cost small change each. A central London Sri Lankan restaurant with a wine list costs several times as much. Prices here are our estimate for September 2026 rather than quoted menu prices, so check before ordering.
Do Sri Lankan restaurants in London serve alcohol?
Many of the family-run rooms in Tooting and east London are unlicensed. Some allow you to bring your own bottle for a small charge and some do not, so ask when you book rather than arriving with wine. The central restaurants are fully licensed and pour arrack as well as wine.
Sources
- Food Standards Agency - food hygiene ratings search (checked September 2026)
- Food Standards Agency - establishment register, open data API (checked September 2026)
- Food Standards Agency - food allergy and intolerance (checked September 2026)
- Transport for London - journey planner (checked September 2026)