A passion for molecular gastronomy
One of his creations: Smoked seafood with miso sponge and gazpacho gel
Chef Kapila Jayasinghe learned about molecular gastronomy, a style of cooking which involves utilising principles of chemistry to create avant garde dishes through the different reactions between ingredients from the chefs of the world famous El Bulli restaurant. Located in the coastal town of Roses in Catalonia, Spain, El Bulli was ranked No. 1 in the world for four consecutive years from 2006 and he was fortunate enough to have trained with their decorated team while he was working in Qatar.
This inventive style of cooking quickly became a passion of Chef Kapila’s and prompted him to introduce this branch of food science to the Cinnamon Lakeside restaurants.
Since his appointment as Cluster Executive Chef in 2021 of the Cinnamon Lakeside and Cinnamon Grand, Chef Kapila is now responsible for overseeing 17 restaurants and over 400 chefs counting those still in training. Already he’s spearheaded several changes across the restaurants of the five-star chain. With restaurant-wide refurbishments underway and menu engineering taking place regularly, Chef Kapila says that guests can expect many new additions in the coming few months.
Recalling his initial interest in food, Chef Kapila says his curiosity extended to how the items were created – as a youngster he admired how the filling was carefully sandwiched inside the fresh fish buns that he would buy from the local shops in his hometown of Kandy.
When he set his mind on pursuing a culinary career, despite his parents’ initial hesitation owing to the fact that the hospitality trade was still in its infancy at the time, he started his training at the age of 17 at a local hotel where he picked up the basics before enrolling at the Ceylon Hotel School in Kandy. “I thought there were creative and innovative things happening with food – this is an art,” he says.
Chef Kapila Jayasinghe
Now with over two decades of experience, he’s recognised as an award-winning Chef with many accolades such as four golds, two silvers and three bronze medals between 1995-99 from the Chef’s Guild competition organised by the World Association of Chefs’ Societies.
After joining Cinnamon Lakeside in 2014 as Executive Chef, he became the leader of the team which received the ‘Most Outstanding City Hotel Culinary Team’ in 2017 and carried away the ‘Sri Lanka Hotel Culinary Championship’ in 2018, a great joy to Chef Kapila who considers seeing his team achieving their goals as his greatest achievement as a chef.
This success was all built upon the experience he gained in restaurants overseas including at the Hilton Hotel and Millennium Hotel in Abu Dhabi, the Jumeirah Beach Hotel in Dubai as well as locally at Club Bentota and The Taj Samudra where he’s held positions such Chef de cuisine and Sous-chef, specializing in seafood and Mediterranean cuisines.
Under his watchful eye, the changes are now in motion. At Nuga Gama which offers Sri Lankan cuisine, the menu will shift from its usual buffet setting to an a’la carte menu offering completely organic Sri Lankan dishes, the first of its kind in a five-star restaurant set-up, says Chef Kapila. The London Grill will also be reintroduced with a new ‘look and feel’ he promises.
For those looking to try out his molecular gastronomy dishes, the Cinnamon Grand’s international multi cuisine Plates restaurant will have a selection, dishes prepared through sous vide (the term means “under vacuum” in French, and involves vacuum-sealing food in a bag, then cooking it to a very precise temperature in a water bath) at the London Grill and thick, decadent Belgian waffles and delicate crepes at the Coffee Stop.
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