Dining in Trincomalee’s Tourist Capital - The Uppuveli Strip
This is our guide to the best places to eat in and around Uppuveli beach. We stayed in Uppuveli for ten days (eight more than we planned)! During our time there we ate our way up and down the town!
Rice ‘n’ Curry
Situated slap bang in the middle of the strip, this multi storey beach hut restaurant is a staple of the area. Its walls are covered in the comments and drawings of travellers before, and it sells… you guessed it… Rice and Curries! To be fair it does also sell other things, but its namesake seems to be its speciality.
When we first came here, we were shocked at the price. We knew Uppuveli was going to be more expensive than other places we had visited (it is a big tourist hub), but when we saw it was 2000 LKR for a rice and curry, we nearly fainted from shock. We had been paying between 450 and 1000 LKR for rice and curry up to this point. In the midst of our shock a friendly waiter came by and reassured us that the 2000 LKR was enough rice and curry for two to three people. Reassured by this, we ordered and can heartily recommend the fish rice and curry.
The presentation was great and the food was tasty. The dishes came out served in large earthenware bowls accompanied by crispy poppadoms, and even a fresh salad. The curry itself was very toned down (we could taste no chilli) and it reminded us of the curries we’re used to back home in the UK. This is no insult, it was delicious!
Our meal, which was more than enough food (we could have fed a third person but we are very very greedy), of fish rice and curry and two bottles of water, cost 2600 LKR (£6.23 or $7.22).
Nina’s Restaurant
Occupying an unassuming shack we didn’t have all that high of hopes for Nina’s. This wasn’t helped as, as soon as we had sat down, the owner rushed over to us and advised us to liberally apply some mosquito repellent. Despite our initial misgivings, however, Nina’s was quite probably our favourite place to eat in Uppuveli.
Cheaper than its neighbour, the aforementioned Rice and Curry restaurant, and operating on a much more small, family style scale, this little hut cranked out some amazing dishes. Being by the sea, we opted for fish curry almost every time we dined there. The fish was fresh, and shown to us before being whisked off to the kitchen to be prepared. The spice levels were perfect, with the owners checking just how much chilli we wanted before they started cooking and actually listening to us when we said we wanted our dishes spicy!
Having just opened in a new location, Nina’s was a much more humble establishment than its more established rivals on the strip, but Nina’s restaurant definitely out cooked its bigger rivals. Each time we dined, the lovely family that ran it gave a friendly, warm and a near perfect experience.
A freshly cooked fish, rice and curry (two portions), a lassi and freshly squeezed fruit juice cost us 2500 LKR (£6.00 or $6.94).
Worth every penny, and every mosquito bite! (Ellie’s always being eaten so it's hard to tell if this was a specifically a Nina mosquito).
*Currently there is no Google Maps listing for this restaurant - see TripAdvisor for more details.
Nero’s Kitchen
There comes a time on any backpacker trip, where the cravings just get too much. These cravings manifest as different things to different people. For some it's Heinz Baked Beans, for others it is the sweetness of a Cadbury’s Dairy Milk chocolate. For John it is cheese, especially the melted variety!
Passing by Nero’s pizza you can see, smell and feel the wood fired oven, always a good sign in a pizza restaurant. We are usually wary of tourist spots, serving “pizza” especially after a particularly bad memory of a Cambodian pizza joint where we were sure we were served melted cheese and tomato on top of a bath sponge. Back in the present, the cheesy cravings could be denied no further. We entered, ordered and were surprised and delighted at the cheesy goodness that came out.
Proper, thin crispy bases with just the right amount of tomato and (no idea how they managed this with all the import problems) proper mozzarella! The craving was slain, however in its place rose the dragon of addiction. We would be back to feed our cheesy habit several times in our Uppuveli stay. Science is yet to prove the link between cheesy cravings and the amount of beers drunk at Fernando’s beach bar, but the research was fun!
We can especially recommend the Spicy Ride pizza, which was topped with barbecued vegetables, sweet corn and fire roasted chillies. The Garlic Prawn pizza (guess what that was topped with) was also fantastic. All the pizzas we ate were great and, guiltily, this is one of the tourist comforts we missed most after leaving Uppuveli.
For two pizzas and two beers we would spend 5100 LKR (£12.23 or $14.16). Although this is more expensive than we were spending in the rest of Sri Lanka, coming from London you can’t really argue with dinner and beer for just over six quid!
Gaga’s Seafood Restaurant
Come dusk, when you walk along Uppuveli’s strip all the restaurants bring out their catch of the day. Crab, prawns, lobsters and tuna all take to the ice tray stage under a lightbulb spotlight. Passing by one evening, we were seduced by the siren calls of seafood and Gaga’s magnificent display reeled us in.
We ended up eating here twice over our time in Uppuveli. The first time, we spread our bets in the prawn category. One dish of Jumbo Prawns and one dish of Tiger Prawns. Both dishes were grilled in garlic and simply served with salad and chips. Both of the prawns were fantastic, with the Jumbo’s stealing the show. This first time we were sharing our orders, this led to difficulties as Ellie became unwilling to relinquish her delicious, fat Jumbo Prawns. The second time we dined at Gaga’s we both opted for the Jumbo’s, this prevented arguments or accusations of dinner-table based theft. Sweet, juicy and perfectly grilled, these prawns were a messy delight to devour. The salad and chips provided a fine accompaniment, especially the chips which could be used as an excellent sauce mop! These side dishes never distracted from the star of the show with the buttery sweet prawns really earning their price tag. Prawns are always more expensive, and ordering from the ice tray display guarantees a higher price tag, but it was really worth it for a treat - even if you do treat yourself twice!
Two plates of Jumbo Prawns, 1 large bottle of water and 2 bottles of Sprite came to 7100 LKR including a tip (£17.05 or $19.71).
You do have to remind yourself in Sri Lanka that just because something is comparatively expensive here, does not mean it is an extravagant expense. We would love to be able to dine on grilled Jumbo prawns for less than a tenner in the UK.
Other Mentions:
The Octopus Restaurant
You can’t avoid it, mainly because its staff won’t let you! Once you are hailed in from the street by one of their cheeky yet friendly staff, the Bob Marley themed restaurant serves much of the same affair as others on Uppuveli strip. It's a little bit pricier than some of the other restaurants and the dishes we went for weren’t quite as flavoursome (although we did arrive during a powercut) but the staff were great and we had a lovely evening.
Trinco Lanka Restaurant
After two attempts at trying to dine here, and finding it closed both times we had nearly given up hope. We found it open one random breakfast time, so dived in quickly. Roti, sambal, and three curries followed. The roti was hearty and the egg curry delicious. We didn’t dine here enough to give it a proper review, but what we did have was lovely. The family were also super charming and laid back; when they realised they didn't have the correct change to break our (admittedly too large) bank note they asked if it was ok if we just stopped by next time we were around with a smaller note!
Be Cool Juice Bar
Despite its name this is a popular place for snacks and lunches amongst tourists. We would recommend their juices, which are freshly prepared and just what you need on a hot beach day. Food wise, they serve fried rice, noodles and some Western options, along with roti and curry for breakfast. The food can take a little time to come out (again we visited in a power cut) but if what you want is a plate of hot fried rice, you can certainly do worse than this.
Cafe on 18th
The closest thing that the Uppuveli strip has to an Instagram fine dining restaurant. This cafe serves delicious coffee, iced or hot and sweet treats as well as matcha tea, high end cooked breakfasts and sushi in the evenings. We were very tempted, especially by the sushi offerings but, as we were on a backpacker budget we did not dine here. We can however, vouch for the excellent quality of the coffee.
Final Thoughts
Please come out of the tourist strip once in a while! As lovely as these places listed above are, just a short walk away from the Uppuveli strip, back along the main road to Trincomalee you will start to see proper ‘hole in the wall’ rice and curry joints. Keep walking past any restaurants that have a menu and on the right hand side of the road are a collection of ‘proper’ local Sri Lankan ‘hotels’. Dive into any one of these and you’re bound to have a great, spicy and cheap meal. You also get to see the look of surprise, confusion and eventual delight on the owner's face as you sit down at their one plastic tables (ignoring the ants on the wall) and start scooping rice and curry into your mouth. We absolutely loved our meals on the strip, but throughout our Sri Lankan adventure, we really have grown to love the variety, spiciness and hospitality we’ve experienced at these more ‘local’ joints.
A word of note about our visit to Uppuveli. These reviews were all done in the strange period of August 2022 after a political uprising and during an ongoing economic crisis. Our restaurant meals were frequently punctuated with power cuts and some of the restaurants were offering a limited menu. During this time, Europe, the UK and others were advising against all travel to Sri Lanka so tourism on the strip was very low. We also have to point out that we are long term travelling, so our idea of “expensive” is very skewed, our ‘treat yourself’ meals of Jumbo prawns were not expensive in any real world sense but due to our style of travel they were comparatively expensive. We strongly suspect that your experiences in Uppuveli will be very different from ours when you visit at, hopefully, a more ‘normal’ time. However we hope that the wonderful people and amazing hospitality will be the same.
Thank you for reading,
John & Ellie x
#adventuresofjellie
Hotels and accommodation in Uppuveli, Nilaveli and Trincomalee.
If you are looking to stay in the beach areas of Uppuveli, Nilaveli or Trincomalee, check out our other guides to Uppuveli and Trincomalee . Or, for some accommodation suggestions check out our maps below:
Places to stay in Uppuveli:
Places to stay in Nilaveli (zoom out a little for more options)
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*Prices correct at time of writing - August 2022
