text Panchali Illankoon

Sri Lanka is not immune to the hype surrounding Japanese cuisine and Colombo has seen more than its fair share of sushi restaurants popping up during the last few years. And what’s not to love? It’s one of the healthiest cuisines in the world, its exotic and delicious and….it is also not unaffected by Sri-lankans trying to ‘localise’ it as we do with every other cuisine. While localising foreign food has been more ‘yay’ than ‘nay’ for most cuisines – Japanese is just not one of them.

So finding a restaurant that does good Japanese; the right way, the authentic way, is always a plus in our books! That is why the new Japanese restaurant in Battaramulla, ‘Nozomi’, left us with a great dining experience on our visit.

Nozomi’s owner, Thushara Ekanayake has been in the hotel and tourism industry for 20+ years and runs a successful tourism business in Japan. His frequent visits to the country and his love for the cuisine is what has translated into the opening of Nozomi – a word that means ‘hope’ in Japanese. “At the end of the day, everything is about hope, right?” asks Thushara.

A purist when it comes to Japanese cuisine, Thushara opened Nozomi with the strict ethos of serving traditional, authentic Ginza style food and the menu is a reflection of such serving an assortment of sushi, sashimi, maki, nigiri, yaki-soba, gyoza, tempura, ramen and bento boxes. Quality, even at a high operating cost, is important for Thushara and for that reason, many of the food items are specially imported from Japan. From imported Norwegian salmon, Saba (Japanese mackerel) and crab meat to sticky rice, spices, noodles and flour; Thushara wants to serve the best quality food at Nozomi and what he can’t import he would only opt for the best in the local market such as export quality Grade A tuna.

Nozomi opened to the public early 2021, and over the course of 6 months; the restaurant has already created a good buzz for itself and even has a few regular clients. The restaurant’s head chef Chandana specialises in Japanese cuisine and has previously worked at Hilton hotel.

“The remarkable progress we’ve made in just 6 months is all thanks to our staff at Nozomi. Headed by Manager Damith, all our staff are very hands-on and very well skilled. While quality of our food is priority, service is also very important to us and our customers always commend us for it” shares Thushara.