{"id":350502,"date":"2026-09-18T20:23:01","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T20:23:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/350502\/"},"modified":"2026-09-18T20:23:01","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T20:23:01","slug":"founder-of-restaurant-that-helped-put-staten-island-on-the-culinary-map-dies-at-68","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/350502\/","title":{"rendered":"Founder of Restaurant That Helped Put Staten Island on the Culinary Map Dies at 68"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Lakruwana Wijesinghe, the restaurateur behind Lakruwana, died in August at Richmond University Medical Center after complications of double pneumonia. He was 68. The Staten Island restaurant grew from Manhattan to Stapleton and became a landmark for Sri Lankan culture. The dining room featured artifacts from Sri Lanka, Buddhist statues, Hindu deities, and dishes like lamprais, hoppers, kottu roti, and curries. A 2013 New York Times review and Michelin Guide recognition helped turn it into a destination for diners from across the city. Julia Wijesinghe said her father valued the restaurant&#8217;s work, avoided attention, and even kept the afternoon closure for shopping. Lakruwana continues under the stewardship of Jayantha Wijesinghe at the corner of Bay and Broad streets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lakruwana Wijesinghe, the restaurateur behind Lakruwana, died in August at Richmond University Medical Center after complications of double&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":350503,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[130966,130969,130964,130968,130965,130963,9,24,63,22224,120901,130967,134,136,135],"class_list":["post-350502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-staten-island","tag-buddhist-statues","tag-complications","tag-double-pneumonia","tag-hindu-deities","tag-julia-wijesinghe","tag-lakruwana-wijesinghe","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-restaurateur","tag-richmond-university-medical-center","tag-sri-lanka","tag-staten-island","tag-staten-island-headlines","tag-staten-island-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=350502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350502\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/350503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=350502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=350502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=350502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}