A walking tour of Staten Island's 'Little Sri Lanka'

Farideh Sadeghin is a chef and video host based in Brooklyn. As part of a new series, she is exploring New York City neighborhoods through their food and histories.

Confession time: I’ve lived in New York for 11 years and have never taken the ferry to Staten Island. While I've been to the so-called "forgotten borough" multiple times, I’m embarrassed it’s taken me this long to jump on the free ferry and enjoy the great views of Lower Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty.

Another benefit of the ferry: You can walk about 20 minutes from the St. George Terminal to the Tompkinsville neighborhood, known to many as "Little Sri Lanka." Staten Island is home to one of the largest Sri Lankan communities outside of Sri Lanka.

The opening of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge in 1964 made the drive to and from Staten Island easy, prompting many of the island’s wealthier residents to move out, according to NY1. As a result, housing prices decreased and became more affordable, attracting more immigrants to the area.

Many Sri Lankans arrived in the U.S. in the 1950s and 1960s, particularly after President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. By 2000, there were about 700 Sri Lankans on Staten Island, many of whom were drawn by the borough's numerous parks, its accessibility to Manhattan, and its relative affordability, according to Untapped New York. The island is now home to an estimated 5,000 people of Sri Lankan descent.

The food of Sri Lanka is packed with herbs, seafood, rice, and coconut flavor. The island country has more than a dozen varieties of rice (down from hundreds not so long ago), used for everything from hoppers (thin rice pancakes) to string hoppers (rice flour noodles). Fiery curries, sour pickles, fruits and vegetables are also common on the Sri Lankan table – and on menus at Staten Island's Sri Lankan restaurants.

After my leisurely ferry ride, but before arriving at Little Sri Lanka's main cluster of restaurants, I stopped at Sagara Food City, a restaurant and grocery along Victory Boulevard.

Walking into the small grocery store, you’re greeted by fresh produce, a display case full of short eats (Sri Lankan snacks that are typically stuffed or fried), and shelves lined with spices and several varieties of rice, flour, and snacks. Sagara Food City has been owned and operated by husband-wife duo Sagara and Anuradha Hewabajgamage for more than five years. Both say they moved here because of the Sri Lankan community; Sagara moved to Staten Island in 1998, while Anuradha arrived in 2002. Sagara tells me that prior to the pandemic, patrons used to be able to dine inside the restaurant, which now only offers a takeaway menu.

Anuradha Hewabajgamage is the chef, and her extensive menu is loaded with Sri Lankan specialties, including string hoppers, kothu roti (sliced roti, scrambled eggs, and vegetables that are chopped and cooked on a griddle and served with curry), rice, and curries. I ordered the chicken lamprais, a dish of rice, curried chicken, deep-fried hardboiled egg, ash plantains, and eggplant that is wrapped and baked in a banana leaf. Sri Lanka was under Dutch rule from 1658-1796, and lamprais is believed to have been introduced by the Dutch Burgher population.

As I waited, Sagara Hewabajgamage had me try one of their fish rolls, which consist of spicy vegetables and canned tuna that are rolled in a thin pancake and deep fried. They looked like egg rolls, but their taste was reminiscent of a spicy, flavorful croquette.

I took my meal down the road and sat in the shade of a tree, where I unwrapped the banana leaf. The smell was intoxicating, sweet and spicy. I washed it down with a thambili, or chilled king coconut water. Thambili is a variety of coconut native to Sri Lanka. I also tossed back a couple of anoda, a Sri Lankan snack of crunchy and slightly sweet fried dough in the shape of the anoda fruit’s flower.

I packed up my leftovers and wandered about 10 minutes further down Victory Boulevard to New Asha restaurant. This area of Victory Boulevard is the heart of Little Sri Lanka. Next door to New Asha is Ceylon Curry and across the street are Lanka Grocery and Dosa Garden. (The latter three places are owned by Mahesh Bandara and run by him and his family.)

New Asha was opened in 2000 by Vijayakumari Devadas, who goes by Viji, and was one of the first Sri Lankan restaurants in this area. The small cafeteria-like spot is quiet, and Viji changes the homestyle offerings daily. I downed a mango lassi while Viji cooked fresh flatbread to go with my plate of eggplant, lentils, beans, chicken and onion pickle.

Ceylon Curry gets its name from Sri Lanka’s previous colonial name, Ceylon. This unassuming spot is simple and the food is flavorful. I ordered the string hoppers, which came piled on top of one another with a side of curry, coconut milk, and pol sambol, an accompaniment of freshly grated coconut mixed with chilies, lime, and shallots. I could have – and might have – eaten the pol sambol by the spoonful. I also got a vegetable roti to go, and ate the charred triangular parcel of flaky flatbread filled with spiced potato, carrot, and onion the next day. To finish, I ordered the watalappan, a steamed egg custard of coconut milk, jaggery, nutmeg, cardamom, and cloves, which I highly recommend trying if you see it anywhere. It’s light, sweet, and an incredible way to complete a meal (even as I still had two more stops).

At Dosa Garden, I ordered the Mysore masala dosa, a spicy chutney thinly spread on an even thinner (and huge!) crepe made from fermented lentils and rice and served with coconut sambal, vegetable curry and tomato chutney.

I also popped into New York Lanka, another grocery store, a couple of doors down. They sell several varieties of rice (one, suwandel, is known and named for its intoxicating scent), fresh vegetables (such as bitter melon and eggplant), and spices, as well as specialty items imported from Sri Lanka.

From here, a 15-minute walk to the Stapleton neighborhood takes you to Lakruwana Restaurant. Husband-and-wife team Lakruwana and Jayantha Wijesinghe opened the restaurant at its current location in 2010. Lakruwana moved to New York from Sri Lanka in 1983 and met Jayantha on the Staten Island Ferry in 1989. With Jayantha’s cooking ability, Lakruwana suggested they open the first Sri Lankan restaurant in Manhattan’s Theater District, Lakruwana Gourmet Restaurant, which closed in 2004 after a fire. The couple moved the restaurant to Corson Avenue in Tompkinsville before settling in their Stapleton location, on Bay Street.

It's impressive from the moment you approach — the façade features a beautiful mural and decorative elephants along the base. The gold doors are intricately carved, and a stone Buddha greets you as you enter. Once inside, you are transported to Sri Lanka. Sri Lankan artifacts adorn the tables and walls, one of which is lined with clay pots that are filled with curries and rice on weekends for the restaurant's popular buffet. The Wijesinghes had everything shipped from Sri Lanka, including the materials used to make the walls, which were constructed in the yard of their home and brought over panel by panel.

Lakruwana and Jayantha were in Sri Lanka the day I visited the restaurant, but their daughter, Julia, greeted me. Julia grew up on Staten Island and said her friends and their families tended not to know where Sri Lanka was and mistook her for being Indian. (She had to constantly explain where she was from.) She decided to open the Sri Lankan Art and Cultural Museum in 2017, in part to make Sri Lanka more wellbknown. The museum, which was originally housed in the restaurant's basement, now sits just down the block, on Canal Street.

At Lakruwana, I ordered the kothu roti and hoppers. The hoppers — bowl-shaped pancakes named for the pan in which they’re cooked — are served with your choice of beef, lamb, chicken or fish curry to dip them in. They’re incredibly light and have crispy edges.

Only about 5% of the guests who dine at Lakruwana are Sri Lankan, Julia said. Most people find out about the restaurant via social media or word of mouth, furthering her mission to spread the culture her parents raised her to know and love deeply.

Visiting Little Sri Lanka and sampling its restaurants is well worth the trek, whether you take the scenic route on the ferry or not.

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Check out Little Sri Lanka

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All the places mentioned in this article are in this Google Map, which you can save to your phone.