Where to find Sri Lankan food in L.A.? Inside the kitchen bringing string hoppers to East Hollywood
There's no shortage of delicious things to eat in East Hollywood: herbaceous lamb kebabs at Saffy's; garlicky prawns at Kuya Lord; the entire spicy-sweet-salty pantheon of Thai Town. But until recently, there was nowhere to try kottu roti, lamprais or string hoppers. That is, until Kurrypinch came along.
Located in the former home of a vegan pizza joint on Hollywood Boulevard, Kurrypinch is one of just a handful of Sri Lankan restaurants scattered across the Southland and the only one in Central L.A. (Most of the others are in the Valley, and there's an outlier in Westwood.) Chef-owner Shaheen Ghazaly has big plans to introduce the cuisine — and his own personalized take on it — to as many Angelenos as possible.
But first, he's trying to define his version of the rich, spicy Sri Lankan food that bears some resemblance to its South Indian neighbors but is very much its own thing. 'I'm still trying to figure that out myself,' he says. Ghazaly walks me through the vast lineup of herbs and spices in his open kitchen: finely chopped ginger and garlic, mustard seeds ('Those three ingredients go into basically every dish,' he notes), chile flakes, paprika, turmeric, fried curry leaves, two different types of his own custom curry powders.
There are tubs of brick-hued chile sauce and garlic oil, both made in-house, and a sheet tray overflowing with burnished tangles of fried onions, awaiting their role as garnish. Coconut is everywhere too, in fresh, shredded and milk form; Ghazaly uses it as the base for many of his curries. (Rice and curry, he explains, is a staple of Sri Lankan cuisine: 'Without it, we are nothing,' he says solemnly.)
An entire subgenre of 'deviled' dishes is heavily spiced with chile and garlic, and fried snacks like fish fritters and spiced chickpeas make great drinking food. And, of course, hoppers (rice flour pancakes), string hoppers (rice noodles) and rotis underpin many meals — the latter two Ghazaly cooks on the griddle, spatulas clanging in a rhythmic blur.
Ghazaly makes his own curry blends and chile oil; eschews the use of soy sauce, black pepper and MSG; and doesn't use any dairy as a thickener. All of his produce is fresh, including curry leaves gifted from a customer's tree. 'This is how I grew up cooking,' he says.
With a majority Sinhalese population that's mostly Buddhist, a smaller Tamil contingent who are primarily Hindu and a smattering of Muslims and Christians too, it's impossible to neatly define the cuisine of the island nation — which also bears the influence of Dutch, Portuguese and British colonialists. But if there's a throughline, it's that most Sri Lankan food is boldly, brightly flavored with a riot of contrasting tastes and textures that makes it nothing short of thrilling to eat.
The L.A. metropolitan area has the second-largest Sri Lankan population in the country (behind New York) with an estimated 7,000 people, many concentrated in the San Fernando Valley near Reseda and Tarzana.
In 1952, the Immigration and Nationality Act repealed certain measures aimed at excluding Asian immigrants, and the following year the first Sri Lankan immigrant to the U.S. under said act, 19-year-old Rajah Rutnam, arrived in L.A.
Rutnam's brother, Jayam, the co-founder of the Sri Lanka America Assn. of Southern California says that chain migration and later a lottery system encouraged more Sri Lankans — often fluent in English due to the British schooling system — to arrive in subsequent decades.
'In the '60s, ours was one of the few families here, and the only reason we came was to visit my brother,' Rutnam says. 'But we got here and we immediately liked everything about California.' It's worth noting that Rajah Rutnam, who died in 2010, founded the first Sri Lankan restaurant in California, dubbed Rajah's Elephant Walk, in Hollywood.
Ghazaly, 49, took a slightly different path. Born in Karachi, Pakistan, he moved to Sri Lanka at 8. As a child, Ghazaly took an active interest in the kitchen, and his single father encouraged his son to become familiar with different spices and ingredients. 'I've had this talent since I was very young where I can taste something, recognize its ingredients and mimic it,' he says. As a young adult, he joined his father's merchant shipping line and spent a dozen years crisscrossing the globe on cargo carriers, docking across Asia, Africa and Europe, exploring the local cuisines in each port.
He moved to Los Angeles in 2006 to pursue a career in IT, while spending his off-hours cooking elaborate Sri Lankan dishes to woo the family of his now-wife, a childhood friend who had immigrated a few years before. Friends and family who tasted Ghazaly's home cooking encouraged him to go pro, and in 2018, he opened a small storefront in Van Nuys, doing a brisk takeout business.
Sri Lankans from across Los Angeles county sought him out, and in 2022, he moved his operation, dubbed Kurrypinch, to a larger location in Tarzana, just down the street from longstanding Sri Lankan destination Apey Kade.
With COVID-19's impact on businesses and a landlord considering demolishing the building, Ghazaly closed the Tarzana location in February of last year. He considered taking a break from restaurants entirely, but when one of his former customers, Dr. Nimesh Rajakumar, offered to invest in a space in East Hollywood, Ghazaly knew it was an opportunity too good to pass up.
The new Kurrypinch, designed by Jennifer Nielsen, trades the strip-mall coziness of some other Sri Lankan spots in exchange for a more modern, streamlined aesthetic, with cool concrete floors and rustic flourishes throughout. There are 26 seats, including a six-seat chef's counter with a partial view of the kitchen, where Ghazaly holds court, experimenting with new dishes for the most adventurous diners.
The menu is a mixture of more traditional 'Sri Lankan Signatures' — like kottu roti (chopped roti stir-fried with an aromatic blend of eggs, meat and vegetables) or string hopper (served in pilau form with curry leaves and spices) — and the 'Chef's Signatures,' where Ghazaly's creativity shines, with what he describes as riffs inspired by global dishes — a coconut milk risotto with mahi-mahi inspired by shrimp and grits, or seared salmon atop a creamy curried kabocha squash puree.
Ghazaly is attempting to strike a balance between satisfying the Sri Lankan customers who come in seeking the highly spiced flavors they grew up with, and the majority non-Sri Lankan guests who may be trying the cuisine for the first time. 'That's one of the reasons I didn't want to call it an 'authentic' Sri Lankan restaurant, because everything has a different kind of spice blend and a different way of cooking,' he explains. So far, however, feedback from all parties has been positive (even if the Sri Lankans sometimes ask for extra chilies or more gravy on the side).
Kurrypinch opened at the end of February and is still fine-tuning operations. Ghazaly is currently focused on getting the restaurant open for lunch service and outdoor dining, and expanding his wine list with specific pairing options. It's all part of his overarching goal to introduce people to the complexities of his cuisine.
'Whenever people ask me, 'Hey, is Sri Lankan food like Indian food? Is it like Chinese food?' I say, sure, we're similar — but Sri Lankan is better,' he says, laughing.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Los Angeles Times
3 days ago
- Los Angeles Times
From ICE raids and spirituality to sex work and babysitting, ‘Trans Los Angeles' documents life in the city
As Mayela got off the bus, she saw Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers raiding the pupusería she worked at in Los Angeles. The undocumented transgender Salvadoran woman watched from behind a car as her coworkers — including another trans Central American woman — were handcuffed and taken away in broad daylight. 'I had so much hope when I arrived to this country,' Mayela , played by Fernanda Celarie, says in her prayers later on. 'Now that I've begun to feel comfortable living here, this is a nightmare. Why so much pain and suffering?' 'Trans Los Angeles' director Kase Peña wrote that scene into her feature film well before the ongoing ICE raids and subsequent protests in L.A., but the harsh reality of fear for the many undocumented people of the city was something she knew she needed to include. 'When I wrote it in 2021, ICE was a hot subject, and then it died down,' Peña told The Times ahead of her film's premiere at the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival on May 30. 'My film was always relevant and needed. The fact that who we have in the White House right now makes my film even more relevant, more needed now that he's brought the ICE thing back. That part [of the movie] is not going to look old. It's unfortunate, but that's going on.' This is what Peña set out to do with her feature-length movie, that is composed of three non-overlapping vignettes sharing a wide-ranging set of experiences that Angelenos face daily. Born and raised in New York, the Dominican American director moved to L.A. nearly a decade ago and was inspired to make her film after noticing a lack of representation for trans stories that reflected the realities of her community. 'When I started hanging with my trans community here in Los Angeles, my intentions were not to tell those stories,' Peña said. 'It was something that I felt like there's a void here, and I'm the right person to tell it because I'm both a filmmaker and a trans person.' While the storylines of 'Trans Los Angeles' drew inspiration from Peña's personal experiences and fellow members of the trans community's stories, the film's format was influenced by global cinema. The director pulled from the seminal Soviet/Cuban political work 'Soy Cuba' to land on the vignette structure of her film. She had originally wanted to mirror the 1964 movie's four episodes but was unable to secure funding — a common dilemma faced by truly independent filmmakers — for her fourth snippet, which centered around a transmasculine character. 'A lot of people ask you questions like, 'Why don't the stories intertwine?' It's because it makes my life more difficult as an independent filmmaker,' she noted. 'If you give me a million dollars I can make the stories intertwined, but I was only getting enough money to shoot one segment at a time. I didn't have money to shoot all three segments.' These restraints forced 'Trans Los Angeles' to be filmed over the course of several years. The first vignette, 'Period,' was shot in March 2021; 'Feliz Cumpleaños' was filmed soon after in June; 'Trans Day of Remembrance' had to be pushed due to finances and was eventually recorded in November 2023 on Peña's iPhone. That last segment was shot using 'stolen locations' for exterior scene — the crew showed up to a spot and recorded without having film permits or insurance. 'That's one reason why I decided to shoot it with my iPhone,' she said of the guerilla filmmaking strategy. 'If somebody would have came to me and said, 'Hey, what are you guys doing over there?' [We'd say,] we're just shooting something for Instagram on my iPhone. They'd be like, 'Oh, okay.'' The vignette 'Period' centers around Vergara, a formerly incarcerated trans Latinx woman played by actor and model Carmen Carrera. The character lands a job as a nanny to a preteen girl while doing sex work on the side. Carrera says she was drawn to the project because Peña's script allowed her to portray a three-dimensional character. 'That is valuable because oftentimes us trans people are told that we're not valuable, or that we're wrong for existing, or that we shouldn't be around kids, or we shouldn't have responsibility or be people who are a contributing factor to society,' Carrera told The Times. 'It's a reflection of my own life too. I am an active girlfriend, I am an active daughter, I'm an active sister. The trans experience is just a small part of my life. It's not the totality of my human experience. I was just happy I felt more related to Vergara because it's how I have always felt as well. In my own life, people judge me all the time.' Another aspect of 'Period' that connected Carrera to Vergara was the character's relationship with her mother. 'I think as a first-generation American you have that extra layer of [thinking], 'My parents came to this country and sacrificed so much, and if I don't make them proud it's gonna be a waste,'' she said. Central to the plot of 'Period' was the community that Vergara was able to tap into thanks to the TransLatin@ Coalition, a real-life advocacy group based out of L.A. that seeks to create safe spaces for transgender, gender expansive and intersex immigrant women in the city. 'The reason the TransLatin@ Coalition is in the film is because that came from me,' Peña said. 'I in real life have gone to TransLatin@ to seek the services that they provide for trans people of color. Because I'm a writer and I go there, I see this place and I'm like, 'I can tell the story and include them.' ' The second segment of the feature, 'Trans Day of Remembrance,' is named after the annual day of observance on Nov. 20 of those whose lives were lost due to transphobia. The story follows Phoebe (Austria Wang), a Taiwanese American transgender woman, as she maneuvers her romantic life and processes the death of one of her fellow trans friends. For this vignette, Peña intentionally cast transmasculine actor Jordan Gonzalez to play Phoebe's cis boyfriend, Sam. . 'We've had cisgender people play trans roles, and it's the first time [Gonzalez has played a cisgender role]. It was something that they've been wanting to do for a while, but this industry doesn't see them as that, because they only see them as trans,' Peña said. 'It was something that they yearned for and perhaps now, because they've done it, other people would consider casting them that way too.' The final segment, 'Feliz Cumpleaños,' portrays an ICE raid on a Salvadoran business while telling the story of Mayela's hopes and aspirations for her life as she prepares for her baptism at an LGBTQ+ friendly church. As an outsider to the Salvadoran experience, Peña leaned on actual members of the Central American country to adjust and approve of her script. 'I want to acknowledge that I'm not from El Salvador. As a person of color, as a Dominican filmmaker, as a transgender filmmaker, I have often seen filmmakers from other communities come and tell my story, and they don't check in,' Peña explained. 'They think they can just write it. They don't get it right sometimes, and and then they go win major awards. I didn't want to disrespect the community like that.' Peña emphasizes that the movie tells stories that get to the heart of the struggle and beauty of being human in L.A. But ultimately her film is only a slice of the overall trans experience, she says, a unique series of stories informed by a writer whose ethos can be encapsulated in her own views on her own trans identity. 'For me, being transgender is not about passing. Being transgender is about having the freedom to be who you are,' Peña said. 'I'm not trying to look like a woman. This is me. That's it, whatever that means.'
Los Angeles Times
4 days ago
- Los Angeles Times
This L.A. chef was named the best in California at the James Beard awards
On Monday evening some of the country's most celebrated chefs, beverage professionals, restaurateurs and bakers filled Chicago's Lyric Opera House for the 35th annual James Beard Foundation Restaurant and Chef Awards. The awards are considered some of the highest honors in hospitality, and this year, amid nationwide deportations and a mounting culture of fear, winners throughout the night honored immigrants: often the unsung staff working in restaurant kitchens. 'We tell stories,' said Kato chef-partner Jon Yao, 'stories of immigrants, diaspora, endurance and perseverance.' Yao won the 2025 category of best chef: California. At his fine-dining restaurant in the Arts District — No. 1 on the L.A. Times 101 List for the last two years in a row — he serves a pioneering tasting menu evocative of his Taiwanese heritage seen through an L.A. lens. Yao's win marks the third year in a row that a Los Angeles nominee took the title of best chef in the state. In 2023 Justin Pichetrungsi of Anajak Thai won the category, while last year the honor went to Kuya Lord chef-owner Lord Maynard Llera. Yao is the only Los Angeles or Orange County nominee to win an award at this year's Restaurant and Chef Awards ceremony. The Kato chef was a semifinalist or nominee in the rising star category in 2018, 2019 and 2020. Yao, a child of Taiwanese immigrants who grew up in the San Gabriel Valley, thanked everyone on Kato's team, both past and present. He underscored the importance of immigrant cuisine not only for Kato but Los Angeles. 'L.A. is a city built by the toils of immigrant communities, and right now, those same communities are being ripped apart,' Yao said in his acceptance speech. 'As the children of immigrants, I'm sure many here can imagine a scenario where we couldn't be here to celebrate this all together. But we all deserve the freedom to pursue our dreams, to determine our own futures and to be treated with equal dignity and respect. And everyone in this room tonight has the ability and voice to amplify that message through their own stories in their own communities, and I urge all of us to please use that voice and platform.' The culinary contributions of immigrants could be heard in acceptance speeches through the night, across a range of cultures. Chefs, restaurateurs and food media regularly praised America's diversity of flavor, widely crediting immigrants. 'All food is immigrant, and immigrants make America great,' Miami chef Nando Chang said when he won best chef: South. 'We're gathering at a time of challenge and fear,' Clare Reichenbach, chief executive officer of the James Beard Foundation, said in the ceremony's opening speech.'That's why it is so important to remember the agency we possess, that hope and empathy are an active choice we can make, and that we're connecting tonight in our shared humanity and in the celebration of food and its unique power to unite. … America's food scene has never been more dynamic, more diverse and exciting — and in large part, we owe that dynamism, that vibrancy, to the immigrant communities that lead and underpin this industry in every way. We get to taste the world because of them.' Washington, D.C., chef Carlos Delgado of Causa and Amazonia accepted the award of best chef: Mid-Atlantic and voiced his support of immigrants while his colleague proudly carried a Peruvian flag to the stage. San Juan's Identidad won Best New Bar, and its owners carried a Puerto Rican flag for their acceptance speech. 'I want this to serve as an inspiration to all Puerto Ricans — and Latinos — that it can be done,' co-owner Stephen Alonso said. Best chef: Great Lakes winner Noah Sandoval of Chicago's Oriole, couldn't attend the evening's ceremony, so a friend read a statement in his stead: 'Thank you, and deepest respect to all the nominees and winners tonight. Also, f— ICE.' When Kumiko owner Julia Momosé accepted the award for Outstanding Bar, she underscored the importance of immigrants not only to her own Chicago establishment, but also the industry. 'Every day we are a team of immigrants,' she said. 'We are children of immigrants … your perspective is your strength.' Los Angeles native, former L.A. Times food writer and community activist Toni Tipton-Martin received the lifetime achievement award, celebrating her decades of contribution to food journalism by raising African American culinary voices and platforming young writers. Last year Ruth Reichl, another Los Angeles Times Food vet, received the lifetime achievement award. Tipton-Martin thanked Reichl in her own acceptance speech for helping to guide her culinary voice early in her career. Though most of Southern California's nominees did not win this year, their contributions to the county's culinary fabric were still recognized. 'You are not just an incredible pitmaster, but you're incredibly creative, and you're sort of creating a style of barbecue that you call Southern California barbecue,' food journalist and red carpet host Francis Lam told Daniel Castillo before the ceremony. 'It's not Texas barbecue, it's not Carolina barbecue, but Southern California barbecue.' Castillo co-owns San Juan Capistrano's Heritage Barbecue and Santa Ana's Le Hut Dinette, and was nominated for best chef: California, which Yao won. San Diego's Tara Monsod, of Animae and Le Coq, was also a nominee in the category. Gusto Bread, the Long Beach artisanal panadería from owners Arturo Enciso and Ana Belén Salatino, was nominated in the category of outstanding bakery as it also was in 2024. The lauded bakery did not win this year; that award went to JinJu Patisserie in Portland, Ore. Anaheim's Strong Water is widely celebrated for its spins on classic tiki drinks as well as its ambitious nonalcoholic program. Like Gusto it was nominated in 2024, but this year's award for outstanding wine and other beverages went to Charleston in Baltimore, Maryland. Redbird bar director Tobin Shea was nominated in the category of outstanding professional in cocktail service, which went to Ignacio Jimenez of New York City's Superbueno. Whether he was going to win or lose, Shea previously told The Times that he would be celebrating: This year's awards fell on the week of his 50th birthday. 'It's going to be a great week,' he said. On Saturday night the foundation held its annual media awards, which celebrate the year's top culinary books, articles, television, radio and more. Los Angeles Times restaurant critic Bill Addison, columnist Jenn Harris and Food senior editor Danielle Dorsey all saw nominations this year. Andrea Freeman — a professor at L.A.'s Southwestern Law School — took the award in the category for food issues and advocacy with her book 'Ruin Their Crops on the Ground: The Politics of Food in the United States, from the Trail of Tears to School Lunch.' L.A.-based journalist Jeff Gordinier, along with artist and designer George McCalman, won the M.F.K. Fisher Distinguished Writing Award for Food & Wine article 'The City That Rice Built.' Another Los Angeles-based author, Gastropod podcast co-host Nicola Twilley, also won an award. Her book 'Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves' led the category of literary writing. The full list of the 2025 James Beard Media Award winners can be found here.
Eater
4 days ago
- Eater
Kato Chef Jon Yao Takes Home the James Beard Award for Best Chef: California
Jon Yao, of Los Angeles's Michelin-starred tasting menu restaurant Kato, won the James Beard Award for Best Chef: California at the 2025 ceremony held on June 16 in Chicago. This is his first James Beard win, and the only award Los Angeles brought home this year. Last year, Los Angeles also took home only one James Beard Award, with Kuya Lord chef Lord Maynard Llera winning for Best Chef: California. Yao was named as a nominee for the Best Chef award on April 2, 2025 alongside Daniel Castillo (Heritage Barbecue), Richard Lee (Saison), Tara Monsod (Animae), and Kosuke Tada (Mijoté). Yao first opened Kato in a tiny West LA strip mall in 2016, serving a menu that drew inspiration from his Taiwanese roots and upbringing in the San Gabriel Valley. In 2022, Yao moved the restaurant to the former M. Georgina space at Row DTLA in the Arts District. In the Arts District, Yao serves a constantly evolving, intricate 12-course tasting menu priced at $325; he told Eater in 2021 that his eyes were on Michelin recognition. Kato was awarded its first Michelin star in 2022 and has been recognized with numerous honors, including being named 'one to watch' by The World's 50 Best Restaurants in 2024. Yao paid tribute to his Los Angeles roots in an interview on the James Beard livestream after winning. 'I'm super proud to be from Los Angeles and able to represent what we do,' he said. Also nominated in the Los Angeles area this year were Gusto Bread for Outstanding Bakery, Strong Water for Outstanding Wine and Other Beverages Program, and Tobin Shea (Redbird) for Outstanding Professional in Cocktail Service. The James Beard Awards, often called the 'the Oscars of food,' are among the most prestigious awards in the food and hospitality industry. Each year, the James Beard Foundation recognizes restaurants, bars, and hospitality professionals in categories like Outstanding Restaurant, Best Chef, and Best New Chef. This year's awards bring three brand-new categories into the mix: Best New Bar, Outstanding Professional in Beverage Service, and Outstanding Professional in Cocktail Service. On June 14, the James Beard Foundation hosted its media awards, which celebrated outstanding journalism, the best cookbooks of the year, and more. At the ceremony, Eater Midwest editor Ashok Selvam took home the Jonathan Gold Local Voice Award. The first James Beard Awards ceremony was held in 1991, when chefs like Rick Bayless, Nancy Silverton, and Wolfgang Puck walked away as winners. In recent years, the foundation has been under increased scrutiny after canceling its programming in 2020 and 2021 due to misbehavior and abuse allegations against nominated chefs, and a lack of nominated and winning Black chefs among the categories. In response, the James Beard Foundation conducted an internal audit to make its voting processes more inclusive and equitable before returning in 2022. The awards have also shifted the Best Chef category to a regional model to better recognize the diversity and depth of talent. Disclosure: Some Vox Media staff members are part of the voting body for the James Beard Awards. Eater is partnering with the James Beard Foundation to livestream the awards in 2025. All editorial content is produced independently of the James Beard Foundation. See More:
