Jaffna food has a character of its own. It’s bold, it’s spicy, and it carries the weight of generations of Tamil cooking from Sri Lanka’s northern peninsula.
After 7:00 PM, from the 14th of May to the 17th, Hotel MaRadha Colombo is bringing it all to the capital with the Jaffna Food Festival 2026. Like every year, we’re setting up a few days where you can taste, see, and experience Jaffna without leaving Colombo.
The Jaffna Food Festival is an annual event we host at MaRadha Colombo. It started as a way to share the flavours of the north with people in Colombo, and it’s grown into something we look forward to every year. Guests come for the food and stay for the cultural side of it. The dress, the music, the decorations, and the small details that make Jaffna feel like Jaffna.
The food is the main draw, but the experience goes wider than that. We bring in fresh ingredients, traditional recipes, and the hospitality that Jaffna is known for.
Jaffna cuisine is different from the food you’ll find in the rest of Sri Lanka. The flavours are stronger, the spice levels are higher, and the use of ingredients like odiyal flour, palmyra, and fresh seafood gives it a distinct identity. The peninsula’s dry climate and coastal geography have shaped the food for centuries, and the result is a cuisine that feels both familiar and unique.
If you’ve only had Jaffna crab curry once at a restaurant in Colombo, you’ve barely scratched the surface. The festival is a chance to go deeper.
Here’s what’s on the menu and the experience this year:
Jaffna Sweets. Traditional sweets from the north, including the round, golden treats made with jaggery and coconut that Jaffna families serve at celebrations.
Jaffna Kool (Odiyal Kool). A thick, hearty seafood broth made with odiyal flour from palmyra. It’s loaded with prawns, crab, fish, and vegetables. One of the most iconic dishes from the north.
Jaffna Cultural Dress and Decoration. The space will be set up with traditional Jaffna decor, and you’ll see staff and performers in cultural dress. It adds context to the food and gives the festival its atmosphere.
Fresh Fish from Jaffna. Seafood brought down from the north to keep the flavours as close to the source as possible. Jaffna’s coastline shapes its cuisine, and the fish is central to that.
Jaffna Toddy Experience. Toddy is a traditional drink tapped from palmyra trees in the north. It’s a part of Jaffna life that doesn’t always travel south, so we’re bringing it to you.
Palmyra Fruit Shop Experience. Palmyra fruit, known as nongu in Tamil, is a staple in Jaffna. It’s cooling, slightly sweet, and unlike anything else. We’re setting up a dedicated palmyra fruit shop as part of the festival.
Sri Lankan food culture is broad, and Jaffna’s place in it deserves more attention than it usually gets. Running this festival every year is our way of keeping that conversation going. It’s also a chance for guests at MaRadha Colombo, both local and visiting, to try something they might not get to eat otherwise.
For people from Jaffna or with roots in the north, the festival is a taste of home. For everyone else, it’s an introduction to one of the most distinctive cuisines in South Asia.
The Jaffna Food Festival 2026 will run at MaRadha Colombo after 7:00 PM from the 14th of May to the 17th of May. You don’t need to be a hotel guest to come. Walk in, sit down, and try the food. Bring family, bring friends, and come hungry. You can also call us to make reservations at +94 70 654 3223
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