2 Galle Road, Colombo 3
Closed right now
The Galle Face Hotel is one of Colombo's oldest, best known hotels, established in 1864. Over the years it's provided food and shelter to many a revered name: Yuri Gagarin, John D. Rockefeller, Prince Phillip and Richard Nixon, to name just a few. They've changed over the years and we decided to pop in to see how they're doing.
The historic Galle Face Hotel's Verandah is now a full-fledged restaurant that serves lunch and dinner buffets with one of the most gorgeous views in the city. The buffet's original price is 2783, but taxes and service charge round it off at Rs. 3500.
We went in at lunch time and the buffet consisted of a range of salads and cold cuts for starters. The cuts were fresh and the salmon especially was beautifully pink and delicious.
The main theme here was a fusion of Oriental, Indian and Sri Lankan Cuisine with Sri Lankan being the main focus. However, at Rs. 3500, the variety of food presented here was limited. For island dining, there was also little to no seafood.
The focal dishes were typical steamed white rice, red rice and basic Sri Lankan curries that were prepared exceptionally well. The manioc curry in particular was excellent as it wasn't too soggy but not too tough either and had a nice chillli tinge to it. The stir fry however, was disappointing as the mushrooms and corn seemed to have been poured straight out of a can.
The Thai style chicken was juicy and thoroughly marinated in what tasted like a mixture of lemon, honey, chilli and some other secret ingredient. I liked this one a lot because I could taste the chicken through the marinade, it was well-balanced.
The Tandoori chicken though, not so much. It tasted rather bland which was disappointing and the flavour isn't anything to get excited about. This was a bit of a let-down because how could you possibly go wrong with Tandoori chicken?
I will however, give them points for how well cooked and fresh the meat is.
There's a Make-Your-Own-Noodle-Soup station that's full of ingredients like Vegetable Tom Yum soup and Oriental Chicken Broth along with basic add-on ingredients like bok choy, mushrooms, really good tofu etc. They also had chicken and seafood dim-sum which were both well-made and delicious.
We ordered the Fish and Chips (Rs.1,509 all inclusive of taxes) off the a la carte menu since we were dining by the sea, and this was the highlight of our day. The fish steak was massive. The crispy batter was light and the fish itself was soft. The fish was served with some tartar sauce and a dish of 'mint-crusted' peas. The chips were chunky and basically perfect.
The desserts that are served as part of the buffet consisted of your typical range of fresh fruit, sweet treats like panna cotta, mousse, bite sized portions of cake, brownies and cheesecake.
I picked out the blueberry panna cotta, mango mousse and the brownies along with the chocolate chip cake.
The cake itself was dry, and felt like it'd just come out of the fridge. The brownies though were delicious - the chocolate brownie was intense and the white chocolate brownie had to be the best out of the two. It had a tiny meringue drop on top so you got a nice crunchy, chewy bite. The blueberry panna cotta was fine, albeit a little runny. The mango mousse tasted more like mango sunquick with yoghurt but in terms of presentation it looked very appealing so I couldn't resist.
The service was up to standard, the waiters were friendly and I appreciate that they'd always keep our water glasses full at all times.
The restaurant itself is beautiful with creamy white pillars, black rattan chairs and glass tables that would be enough to seat about 70+ people on a busy day. The view of course is spectacular, you're looking right out onto the sea, and you can see silhouettes of vessels out on the horizon.
You WILL however be interrupted by a few unexpected visitors every now and then. There are a few squirrels who aren't the least bit afraid of us menacing humans and they'll happily jump onto your tables and wave their tails about the place. One of them managed to snag a fry off our plate. Here he is:
There's also a rogue crow or two who annoy the living daylights out of the gardener and chefs by mockingly flying in and out of the place.
We didn't mind the wildlife but some people might find this disturbing.
We're not sure the buffet is worth Rs. 3500 a head. But we'd visit again solely for the view, and the a la carte Fish and Chips. Make sure you visit for lunch, or make an early reservation for dinner so you can catch a last glimpse of the setting sun.
The Verandah is now a full-fledged restaurant that serves lunch and dinner buffet meals at a questionable price range with a limited variety of cuisines to choose from.
The Galle Face Hotel is one of Colombo's oldest, best known hotels, established in 1864. Over the years it's provided food and shelter to many a revered name: Yuri Gagarin, John D. Rockefeller, Prince Phillip and Richard Nixon, to name just a few.
සිංහල ගාලු මුවදොර හෝටලේ ලස්සන වගේ කෑමත් හොඳද? පොඩ්ඩක් බලමු.
Closed right now
Price Range
Dish Types
Rice Noodles Meats Sweets Salad Vegetarian Beverages Rice And Curry Pork Chicken Tandoori Fish And Chips Cuttlefish Cakes Burgers Sandwiches Parata Chocolate
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ruthinsir
Had no idea that the prices were so reasonable at GFH, will check it out sometime. Thanks for the review, shru. The GF sunset never gets old.
iro
you should go for high tea there, if u haven't already. u won't be disappointed :D
Sam
The Verandah is the ideal place to have a chilled out drink with a friend, even during that time you need to relax by yourself. I have even had business meetings there. Its a niche crowd that goes there so anyone wanting to avoid teeny bopers this place is for you
RTI
May I suggest that Yamu do another review of the Tea served here. We were a large party about 2 weeks ago and were hugely disappointed both by the food and the service, which at Rs 1850 per head (the most expensive in Colombo) is no value for money. We also got the distinct feeling that the waiters would probably not have been as rude had we been a group of Westerners rather than Sri Lankans. The tea is no longer buffet but in the form of a platter for two. While prettily done, the platter would never substitute for the substantial tea menus that are now common in quality hotels around Colombo. The 3 level platter is 2 plates of an assortment of many sweets and 1 plate of a small assortment of savories all of which was mostly average. But this this sort of arrangement is a rip off, because the customer has no choice but to eat what's given, with no replenishment. The overburdening of the sweets is an easy way for the hotel to get off without giving you a freshly made tea thus saving on staff time - sweets unlike savories can be outsourced and made days ahead. The scones came cold. The only saving grace of the already sparse savory platter was a little helping of smoked salmon. When some platters turned up without the salmon, the waiter actually had the gall to insinuate that we had eaten it and were lying get more. For some bizarre reason, they serve you iced coffee to start, and tea is only provided IF you ask. No one actually came around to offer us anything, everything had to be asked for (including water) - repeatedly, producing surly looks from the staff. The tea opens at 4 but it took a solid 45 minutes before the food showed up despite the fact that advance reservations had been so they should have known the size of the party. The F and B manager was nowhere to be found to complain. The only distinct advantage of this place is the view and ambience of the hotel itself since you can watch the sunset while you eat. But for this price you are better off ordering something substantial from the menu., or going elsewhere altogether for tea.
Rabbit
Their Sunday buffet is overpriced (10k with taxes for 3) with minimal variety. Cinnamon Lakeside has about 4x more dishes for the same price. The desserts, although small in number, tasted pretty good. The service here is poor and appears disorganized. They don't include bread plates, dessert spoons when setting the tables - weird!, so we had to ask for knives, water several times. There were 5-6 hotel staff members dining there as well, I guess their priority is to serve their own staff rather than the paying customers.
Go to Cinnamon Lakeside or Grand instead!!
Skywalker2015
This is an awful place. Grossly overpriced, poor quality food, dilute drinks. There weren't any side plates on the table, and the cutlery was kept wrong. Very poor service, almost non-existent service. Don't waste your time going here, if you want good food and quality service go over to the Cinnamon Grand.