Arts
Start your day with One Up
The poached egg that greets us at One Up – a newly opened all-day breakfast café in Wellawatte – looks promising. Nestled on a bed of rocket, the Smash n Smoking stack we sample is served with a hash brown and smashed avocado. The poached egg is lightly topped with tomato salsa and finished with generous slices of smoked salmon and dollops of feta and cream cheese whip on the side. It’s a carefully plated affair and if you’re in the habit of documenting the food you eat, it’s a dish which makes you instinctively reach out for your phone before you reach out for your cutlery.
We approach with caution though; we’ve munched our way through beautifully plated but bland dishes one too many times to let our guard down. There’s always a moment of truth when the firm white of a poached egg gracefully surrenders to a knife. Overcooked, and the yolk is a rubbery affair. Well done, and the result is almost poetic. At One Up, thankfully it’s the latter and we aren’t disappointed.
What first lures us to One Up is the promise of all-day breakfast and when we walk into the café last week, they’re only a few days old. Usually closed on Mondays, the café is nice enough to open their doors to give us a peek at the interior and menu. There are pencil marks still on the wall– a mural is slowly taking shape and features a mishmash of Australia-related imagery and a pixelated Super Mario leaping mid-air. The café is complemented with cheerful pastel blue, grey and white interiors and a view of the Galle Road and the aroma of coffee pervades the premises.
“I really like breakfast… that was the starting point,” explains proprietor, Divanka Candappa matter-of-factly. Candappa, who also owns the Thai restaurant, Tom Yum, on the floor below is a frequent visitor to Australia. On his return to Sri Lanka, he would inevitably miss the Aussie breakfasts that were a staple during his visits and set about to recreate the same breakfasts in Colombo. “Breakfast is something special, it really sets the tone for the rest of the day. And I found if I have a good breakfast I’m okay for the rest of the day,” he adds.
One Up’s menu features breakfast dishes such as Eggs Benedict (starting from Rs. 1,400, served with either avocado, smoked salmon or crab), banana and walnut bread, sandwiches, granola and stacked pancakes (Rs. 1200). For Caleb Kloeg, who helms the kitchen and hails from New Zealand,food has been a natural part of his life. His family owned a bakery and food-related learning was inevitable. Under Kloeg’s deft hands,One Up’s French toast is a hedonistic concoction that hits the perfect saccharine note without being overly sweet. Priced at Rs. 1200 and named after Australian actress, Margot Robbie, the brioche French toast is topped with a berry compote, caramelized bananas, strawberries, whipped coconut and a light drizzle of maple syrup and decorated with edible flowers and a dusting of icing sugar.
The cafe’s barista Alijoscha Felber took an interest in coffee and transformed it into a career, experimenting constantly and studying the ingredients which affect each coffee drink. Also from New Zealand, Felber spent nine years immersed in Melbourne’s coffee scene and comes equipped with hands-on knowledge and training about brewing the perfect cuppa.
The most recent addition to Colombo’s restaurant scene looks promising. It’s the type of place you’d head to for a decadent weekend brunch to pamper yourself after a long week or when you need a hearty breakfast and robust cup of coffee to jump-start a flagging work-day. Priced a little higher than most breakfast dishes found around the city, it takes on a concise list of familiar breakfast specialties but ups the ante with quality ingredients and thoughtful presentation paired with good coffee.
One Up All Day Breakfast Café is located at 330, Galle Road, Wellawatte (opposite St. Peter’s College) and is open from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. from Tuesday to Sunday.
Caleb Kloeg
Alijoscha Felber: Brewing a perfect cup of coffee. Pix by Indika Handuwala