Spice is a peculiar yet charming little restaurant located off the dusty, exhaust-filled Galle Road. Screened by a painted concrete slab, a passing glance from a tuk is likely to overlook the large dining space concealed behind. The restaurant slash kade hiding beyond the colourful wall is housed under an aluminium canopy, held up by scaffolding and corrugated sheets of metal. Despite its minimal structure, however, Spice is really a rather pretty place to sit down for a meal.
The dining area is a spacious and frilled by leafy plants. This is alfresco dining, Wellawatte style. You can sit under the silvery ceiling, shielded from the sun, drinking a Mango Rubicon while the fronds of a palm leaf brush against your shoulder. (Yes, they sell the elusive Rubicon cans. We found these once at Baskin Robbins but they have eluded us since.) At the far end of the garden lies the wall painted by Colombo’s collective of artists, CoCA. The space that Spice inhabits seems like it was meant for something more that collapsed somewhere along the way, allowing for the rather twilight kade to pop up.
Foodwise as well, Spice is good. They serve your standard kade fare – rice, parippu, chicken – as well as the expected menu items of fried rice, kottu, nasi goreng, etc. The rice and curry lunch (Rs. 175) is tasty and their chicken curry is excellent.
This is quite the little find on Galle Road. Not somewhere you should bother venturing out of your way for, but definitely a little haven of reprieve from the fumes of the street and the fury of the sun.
