A Sri Lankan restaurant in Milan, in Dergano.

What Sri Lankan food actually is

Sri Lankan cooking is not a regional variation of Indian food, though the two share a peninsula's worth of history. The backbone is coconut — coconut milk in the curries, grated coconut in the sambols — together with curry leaf, pandan, cinnamon, cardamom, black pepper and a roasted curry powder that is darker and nuttier than anything you would find further north.

The other half of the tradition is street food, and that is the half most people meet first: things chopped, fried and tossed on a flat top in front of you, eaten fast and loudly. Rawana cooks both halves. The curries are slow. The kottu is not.

Kottu, and the noise it makes

Kottu is a sound before it is a dish: two blunt metal blades on a hot steel plate, chopping roti into ribbons and folding everything else through it. Ours is built on onion, leek, carrot, egg, garlic, ginger and a spiced gravy, and you choose what goes in.

There are seven versions on the menu, from €7 to €22 depending on what you put through it. If you have never eaten Sri Lankan food, this is the dish to order first — it is the one people come back for.

• Vegetable, chicken, beef and cheese kottu at the everyday end
• Seafood and prawn kottu at the top of the range
• Chopsuey kottu, where the roti is swapped for noodles

The curries

Five curries, €15 to €19, built on coconut milk and finished with the roasted spice blend. They are meant to be eaten with rice and passed around rather than kept in front of one person — order two between three people and you will eat better than ordering one each.

If you want to understand the kitchen in one order, take a curry, a kottu and a plate of rice, and share all three.

Rice, noodles and the devilled plates

The fried rice is stir-fried with egg, leek, carrot, onion, garlic and ginger — seven versions, €8 to €18. The noodles use the same aromatics without the egg: leek, carrot, garlic and ginger, five versions, €8 to €18.

"Devilled" is a Sri Lankan idea rather than a British one: onions, capsicum and chilli, cooked hot and fast until everything catches at the edges. Six devilled plates, €14 to €18. Alongside them sit seven fried dishes at €12 to €17, and six batter dishes — the crisp, shareable end of the menu — from €17 to €35.

The sharing specialities

Four large plates built for the middle of the table, €18 to €70. They land as a centrepiece and everyone reaches in. A table of two can order the small end; a table of eight can order the large one and stop worrying about who ordered what.

Most guests spend somewhere between €20 and €35 a head, drinks included.

How hot is it, really

Sri Lankan cooking has a reputation for heat, and it earns it at home. Here it is balanced rather than brutal: the spice is bold and the flavours are the real ones, but the level is set so a table in Milan can eat a whole meal rather than one heroic mouthful.

If you want it genuinely hot, say so and tell us how far to go. If you would rather stay gentle, say that instead — the kitchen will point you at the milder end of the menu rather than talk you out of it.

Eating vegetarian, and eating around an allergy

There are vegetable versions of the kottu, the noodles and the fried rice. One thing worth knowing before you order: the kottu and the fried rice are both built on a base cooked with egg, so if you avoid egg or you are eating vegan, the vegetable noodles are the straightforward choice and the kitchen can adjust the others.

The full allergen list — the fourteen substances set out in Annex II of EU Regulation 1169/2011 — is published on the menu page, dish by dish, along with a plain note about what our kitchen handles every day. Tell us when you book and we will work around it properly.

Getting here, and when we are open

Via Giuseppe Cesare Abba 7 is in Dergano, in Municipio 9. Come out of Dergano M3 and it is about nine minutes on foot; from Maciachini M3 it is about twelve. It is a residential street, so the room is quieter to arrive at than anywhere near the Duomo, and easier to park near.

We are open Monday, Wednesday and Thursday from 12:00 to 15:30 and again from 17:00 to 23:00; Friday from 12:30 to 23:00 straight through; Saturday from 12:30 to 15:00 and from 18:00 to 23:00; and Sunday from 12:00 to 23:00 straight through. We are closed all day Tuesday.