{"id":550042,"date":"2026-03-19T07:05:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T07:05:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/550042\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T07:05:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T07:05:11","slug":"peter-kuruvitas-new-sri-lankan-residency-at-crown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/550042\/","title":{"rendered":"Peter Kuruvita\u2019s New Sri Lankan Residency at Crown"},"content":{"rendered":"

The dish that changed everything for Sri Lankan Australian chef Peter Kuruvita was a snapper curry.<\/p>\n

Back in the early 2000s, while running celebrated Sydney restaurant Flying Fish<\/a>, he wanted to translate the flavours he grew up with in Colombo for an Australian audience.<\/p>\n

The result was a dish that would go on to dominate the menu for two decades: a perfectly seared fillet of Australian snapper crowned with a zesty coconut sambol, served with a deeply aromatic, creamy coconut curry sauce; a miniature sweet-potato-and-prawn pan roll by its side; the quintessential serving of rice; a thick sweet and sour swipe of tamarind chutney; and a cooling raita.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you put everything together in one bite, it takes you straight back to my grandmother\u2019s kitchen,\u201d Kuruvita says. \u201cFor 20 years, that dish would take up half of the orders of main courses in the restaurant.\u201d<\/p>\n

Decades and multiple other restaurants later (including Flying Fish in Fiji, Noosa Beach House and Alba in Noosa, now all closed), the dish remains one of his signatures and reflects his contemporary approach to Sri Lankan cooking.<\/p>\n

That philosophy \u2013 and this dish \u2013 now arrive in Melbourne through Serendip at Evergreen<\/a>, a limited-time residency at Crown Melbourne from March 19 to April 26. Kuruvita is presenting a seven-course menu inspired by Sri Lanka\u2019s culinary landscape.<\/p>\n

His goal is not just to introduce diners to the cuisine \u2013 he wants to compel them to discover the country behind it. \u201cEveryone thought Sri Lankan food was a bit like Indian food,\u201d he says. \u201cThen they taste it and go, \u2018Holy hell, this is completely different\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sri Lankan cooking itself is shaped by centuries of colonisation and cultural exchange. Portuguese, Dutch and Malay influences sit alongside South Indian techniques and regional traditions across the island. The country is home to communities of Vedda (the Indigenous people of the island), Sinhalese, Tamil, Arabic, Malay and Burgher people, with different languages and traditions. It\u2019s also a country that has weathered political turmoil while its people remain deeply resilient.<\/p>\n

Authenticity, Kuruvita says, is not found in national labels but in individual kitchens. \u201cYour pol [coconut] sambol will be different to mine,\u201d he says. \u201cYour neighbour\u2019s will be different again. We use the same ingredients, but every household has its own technique.\u201d<\/p>\n

That sense of personal history guides his cooking. \u201cMy grandmother sits on my shoulder with a wooden spoon,\u201d he says with a laugh. \u201cYou can modernise a dish however you like, but if you change the flavour, Sri Lankans will walk away.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Kuruvita doesn\u2019t think Melburnians will want to walk away from this menu. \u201cMelbourne diners are curious,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s one of the best food cities in the world.\u201d Curiosity, he believes, often leads somewhere unexpected.<\/p>\n

Sri Lanka itself has long been a travellers\u2019 secret. Surf breaks line the south and east coasts, misty tea plantations crown its lush central highlands, and fertile farmland and ancient cities sit within a few hours of each other. The lesser-visited north, meanwhile, offers rich Tamil culture and a food tradition as awe-inspiring as the landscapes themselves.<\/p>\n

Increasingly, Kuruvita has turned his attention to promoting Sri Lanka through culinary tours and his work filming Masterchef Sri Lanka. His hope is that discovering the cuisine at Serendip might inspire Australians to experience it at the source.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany Australians go to Bali for a vacation,\u201d he says. \u201cSri Lanka is a very different country, but it\u2019s another beautiful island only nine hours away.\u201d<\/p>\n

From coastal seafood curries and coconut sambols to hill-country vegetables and spice gardens, he argues the island offers one of the most diverse food cultures in the region. \u201cOnce people taste it, they start asking where it comes from.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Melbourne diners, Serendip at Evergreen offers a glimpse of that landscape, one that might spark a bigger journey. \u201cCome through this menu and you\u2019ll see what modern Sri Lankan food can be,\u201d Kuruvita says. \u201cThen, hopefully, you\u2019ll want to see the country for yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n

This article is produced by Broadsheet in partnership with Crown. To experience Serendip at Evergreen, reservations can be made via Crown\u2019s website<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The dish that changed everything for Sri Lankan Australian chef Peter Kuruvita was a snapper curry. Back in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":550043,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[64,63,127975,154466,51652,2331,8851,1295,17541,1625,621,18601,105],"class_list":["post-550042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bars","tag-broadsheet","tag-cafes","tag-culture","tag-drink","tag-food","tag-guide","tag-lifestyle","tag-national","tag-restaurants","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=550042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550042\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/550043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=550042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=550042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=550042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}