Places of interest in Kandy

Places to eat and drink in Kandy

There are two things to note about eating and drinking in Kandy. One is that there’s very little open in the evenings (though this is slowly improving); the other is that being the religious centre of the island alcohol is not as easily available as in other towns – though it is available except on Poya days and during the Perahera period. Here are just a few places we like, but do try others and if they’re good, tell us!

For lunch we sometimes just buy short eats from one of the many bakeries Kandy is famous for – the big ones such as Devon and Delight are on Dalada Vidiya but there are lots more in the side streets. You can eat in some of them if you don’t want to eat on the streets. Or you can get very cheap and filling ‘lunch packets’ (rice and curry) from the same places. If you want a nice place to sit down we can recommend a few. The Empire Cafe near the Temple of the Tooth has a brilliant menu and serves excellent non-alcoholic drinks but is not licensed, being so close to the temple. Another excellent but non-licensed place is the recently opened Global Kitchen on Kotugodela Vidiya, specialising in South Indian food but as the name suggests many other cuisines also. If you fancy a beer or other alcoholic beverage the best place in town is the Royal Bar on King Street. Draught or bottled beers, good snack food and all set in a shady ancient courtyard. The staff might try to persuade you to use their upstairs restaurant. Don’t let them! Also highly recommended is The Stags Head on the roof of The Casamara Hotel. There is also The Pub on Dalada Vidiya where you can sit on a balcony with a beer and watch the city go past. They also do food – our experience of that has been mixed. 

Further out of town but worth a visit is the wonderful Slightly Chilled restaurant and bar (also called Bamboo Garden). Great, mainly Chinese, food, tremendous views over the lake and wonderful ambience, but it means walking past the temple then going up the main road you come to, heading uphill away from the lake and round a tight bend – you’ll then find it on your left up a short steep driveway. The bar at the Queens Hotel is very atmospheric but also cannot these days serve alcohol to non-residents as it is close to the temple. But still a great place to drop in for a lime soda or other non-alcoholic drink. Further out on the other side of the lake the almost equally old Hotel Suisse does lunches and is licensed for non-residents. Finding the bar/restaurant isn’t easy as the Suisse is a huge rambling place. 

If you choose to eat out in Kandy in the evenings there aren’t many places to choose from. Slightly Chilled is open until fairly late if you don’t mind the walk or a tuk-tuk ride and the view over the lake at night is possibly even better than in the day. Sri Ram’s is an established vegetarian curry place on Colombo Street which has consistently been good value for many years. Before we had Jungle Tide to come home to we often ate at the Flower Song which has renamed itself Jasmine Song and moved a bit nearer to town on Kotugodella Vidiya. It certainly used to be a pretty decent Chinese place (not licensed) and hopefully still is, but we’ve no recent experience. Up on the top floor of the Kandy City Centre (KCC) shopping mall is World Spice – a very modern kind of eating place where you get in with a swipe card which you are given and use this to order from various food and drink ‘islands’ representing different world cuisines, then pay for everything before they let you out again. It’s open all day and late, but not licensed for alcohol.

A couple of places you might want to pop into just for a mid-morning drink are Deli France on Dalada Vidiya (expensive but very good if you’re a coffee & cakes person) and the Roots juice bar on the bottom floor of KCC, also accessed from Dalada Vidiya. There’s also the recently opened Café Walk in the foyer of the KCC as you come in from the street, and up on the third floor is the Mlesna Tea Centre which is mainly a shop selling a huge range of teas and tea-related products but has a small tea-oriented café bit if tea tasting is your thing. On Temple Street close to the Empire café are two fairly newly opened coffee places. Natural Coffee is the only place outside the posher hotels where you can get really good coffee but it’s expensive. Café 7 nearby is cheaper but the quality is less good. 

If you have kids (and possibly if you don’t) you might be tempted to try the Burger King on the top floor of KCC . There’s also a kids’ games and entertainment centre, Worldplay, including a mini-roller-coaster on the roof. Or Pizza Hut opposite the Queens Hotel – though they may find the toppings a bit unfamiliar! There’s also a Domino’s on Kotugodella Vidiya and a KFC next door to Cargills Food City.