Colombo Cricket Club Cafe

Cricket Club Cafe –  Comfort Food and Cricket Memorabilia

From the day it opened in Colombo in 1996, the Cricket Club Cafe has been one of the city’s most popular places for a relaxed lunch or dinner. The original attraction was the cricket memorabilia (balls, bats, cricket star’s clothes, old photographs) that lined its walls and screens showing cricket matches. But the food and service (and the prices), as well as the furnishings (wooden beer barrels as tables), kept people coming back for more.

Within weeks of opening, the Cricket Club Café established self as a venue that lived up to its name: fun, cosy and club-like with café cuisine to match the hearty appetite of cricketers and sports fans.

Many regular customers were stumped when the Cricket Club Café moved from its convenient location in Colombo 3 but in its new pavilion at 12 Flower Road, the Cricket Club Café keeps up its long innings of pleasing the crowd.

Now it’s in a quirky building that offers several eating and drinking spaces. The entrance, past the kitchen, leads to an open-air courtyard with the bar counter on one side and a traditional restaurant room on the other. A saloon with a pub atmosphere (those barrel tables) features the same menu as the restaurant and other spaces but in a more informal setting. There is also another room upstairs for dining above the crowd downstairs.

Upstairs private room and another room for dining

However attractive the décor and efficient the service (and Cricket Club Café does get busy so you might have to wait for attention), the food is what makes it special. It’s no-nonsense good: food with dishes named after cricketers. It’s more than pub grub, though, with burgers and wraps. pies, salads, meats, fish dishes and a popular mixed grill.

The queen of desserts is a plump Pavlova with a choice of two fruity dressings, such as passion fruit and papaya. There is a good choice of wine, and of course beer. The coffee is superb, being locally grown and roasted by the owners’ coffee business.

The couple behind the Cricket Club Café concept, Gabrielle and James Wight, hail from Melbourne, Australia, which perhaps explains the jolly, heartfelt hospitality that pervades the place. You don’t need to play cricket or even be interested in the game to appreciate the Cricket Club Café as a place for a good meal as well as a good time.

The entrance, past the kitchen, leads to an open-air courtyard with the bar counter on one side and a traditional restaurant room on the other

The Crick Club Caf is open from breakfast to 23.00hours throughout the week. It’s at 12, Flower Road, Colombo 7; tel: 011 2574394 ( Get directions)