Serving up a high-end treat for CFW
Colombo Fashion Week begins in ten days’ time and promises to be bigger, better and braver. While all eyes are on the catwalk, this year CFW will embrace food as well by introducing its Fashion+Food segment, which will see six restaurants in Colombo partner with the brand to offer special menus designed exclusively for the duration of that week. Each restaurant has designed their menu around a particular theme, and we spoke to them about what you can expect to see on the menu.
Many of these menus are priced on the relatively higher end of the scale and you should expect to be set back by Rs. 4000 upwards per head; with the exception of Nihonbashi, which has set the price for its menu at Rs. 2500.
Clique
Clique: Succulent meat with a difference
One of Colombo’s quieter watering holes, Clique allows you to a bird’s eye view of Colombo 02’s hubbub while enjoying a nice steak. Aiming to give Colombo’s palate something different, they cook their meat a la Japanese cooking techniques, or according to the French sous vide method.
Celebrating CFW, Clique’s custom menu will be inspired by the high end leisure aura of Ralph Lauren. Ralph Lauren is best known locally for his polo shirt, and every course on the menu will pay homage to the Bronx-born American designer with classic American dishes given an elegant twist. Look forward to Japanese inspired New York cheeseburgers and Oyster Rockefellers; a New Orleans favourite.
Clique is open from 7 p.m.- 11 p.m. from Tuesday to Saturday.
Asylum
Asylum opened with the Arcade Independence last year, and while it may look fairly high-end Chef Jerome La’Brooy believes in fresh, simple
Asylum: A menu that combines curiosity and mystique
dishes. Influenced by Spanish and European cuisine, Jerome was given the interesting theme of Alexander McQueen to work with for CFW. Striking a balance between the extravagantly dramatic British brand that strides across runways and his own food mantra, found Jerome creating a menu that induces both curiosity and mystique.
He manages to do so with dishes such as the squid ink risotto with marinated lotus root and micro gotukola leaves, tea smoked potato puree and the initially alarming yet delightful use of asamodagam leaves with a green pea mash. Keeping with McQueen’s colourful attitude is the dessert course; a mix of chocolate, chilli and fruit, adding to the drama of it all.
The CFW menu will be available from
6 p.m. – 11 p.m.
Tintagel
Tintagel: Going black and white
The plush boutique hotel down Rosmead Place is celebrating CFW with a more relatable brand known to many a Sri Lankan home. Their menu will be based on the local brand Paradise Road, which clearly reflects in the atmosphere of Tintagel. The team hopes to recreate black and white on a plate in keeping with the elegance of the brand.
Chesa Swiss
Chesa Swiss is 24 years old and easily takes the title of the oldest amongst the restaurants we’re featuring this week. It comes as little surprise then, that their menu will be themed under ‘timeless elegance’; an apt expression of the restaurant’s approach to classic Swiss cuisine.
A team of chefs at the restaurant have devised the menu for CFW, and we’re told that this will be a bit different from what they’ve become known for-classic and familiar cuisine served at their long-standing
Chesa Swiss: Offering timeless elegance
Duplication Road locale.
Expect a classic cocktail as your welcome drink, and move on to a scallop tartare with seared prawn and salad crouton garnish as an appetiser. This will be followed by chicken consommé with foiegras and Swiss raclette cheese toast, a palate cleanser and then mains (you’ll have an option between the premium-quality imported red meat Chesa is most known for or seafood). Dessert will be a deconstructed classic.
Chesa Swiss is open from 6 p.m.to 11 p.m.
Nihonbashi
Adopt the ‘Runway Diet’ with Nihonbashi, one of Colombo’s most well-known Japanese restaurants founded in 1995 by Dharshan Munidasa.
Nihonbashi: Try their ‘Runway Diet’
The No Carb Bento is an interpretation of the classic Japanese method of presenting a lunch and dinner set, and Darshan’s own weight loss of 25 kg in eight months was the inspiration for this menu.
While the six-dish No Carb Bento is also available on Nihonbashi’s regular menu they’ve changed it up a bit for CFW by adding Centenella, the Gotukola Elixir. The items on the menu feature tuna sashimi, seaweed salad, spinach with egg, iceberg salad with prawns avocado and tomato, miso soup, and a salmon salad and crab wasabi mayo salad in avocado.
Nihonbashi Honten is open from 12 noon to 2.30 p.m. and 6 p.m. to 10.30 p.m.
Cafe Francais by Pourcel
Working with a white theme, the team at Café Francais have put together a six-course menu with the spotlight on locally sourced, fresh seafood
Cafe Francais: The new kid in town will offer classic French cuisine. Pix by Dihan De Silva
prepared in the classic French style. The bistro-style French restaurant opened just a few months back on Park Street and has gained quite a reputation, most notably due to its alliance with the Pourcel Brothers from France.
Using white to symbolize elegance, purity and style on a plate the team have created the menu around white products, with a touch of vivid colour to underline and highlight each creation.
The menu includes lobster pique in emulsified coconut milk and fennel grazed marshmallow, scallops tempura with leek fondue and mildly acidic yoghurt, barramundi in filo pastry with apple, celery, beurre blanc and truffles, a ricotta cheese tartine with honey and walnuts, verbena and lemongrass white snow and a white pavolva.
The CFW menu will be available
from 7-10 p.m.