While in London, I couldn’t stop hearing about Sri Lankan restaurant Hoppers, the new star of the Soho firmament that has received rave reviews across the board (and either sparked off or coincided with a mini-craze for hoppers on Instagram). As a fan of appams, the light fermented rice crêpes eaten for breakfast and as a snack in southern India and Sri Lanka, I didn’t need any persuading to make a meal out of them.
‘Hopper’ is the colonial mispronunciation of ‘appam’, which is now commonly used in Sri Lanka (early European colonisers must have been deliberately obtuse, because, to my ear, the two words don’t sound anything alike). Calling an eatery Hoppers is thus presumably a nod to the culinary borrowings, negotiations and appropriations between the various cultures of this little island.
So would Hoppers be a mangling, or a mingling of flavours? We were about to find out, but only, the girl at the door informed us, after a wait of three hours.
Just 15 minutes shy of three hours, we were at the door along with three other groups, everyone looking ravenous and suspicious. We circled the entryway like hyenas, feigning politeness (“Have you been waiting long too?”), while all inching furtively towards the door.
Finally, we shuffled into a warm, snug space, a mishmash of someone’s idea of a colonial café and a dosa canteen. There are terracotta tiles, film posters and carved wooden raksha (fire dance) masks on the walls, rattan on the chairs and ceiling, and amber-tinted water glasses and terracotta crockery. Moneyplants are dotted here and there, as if the lush foliage of the island were bursting out of the corners.
Sri Lankan food is not new in London. But Hoppers is part of the Sethi restaurant empire in London, which includes the popular Trishna, Gymkhana, and Bao. The expectations were understandably high.
It looked like they had another hit on their hands. The menu skips between small plates, curries, hoppers, and a few extras listed under ‘Rice, Roast and Kothu’, and it includes a helpful glossary for people who are new to Sri Lankan food and its signatures: pennywort leaf, cinnamon, lemongrass, pandan leaf, coconut, and so on. We ordered as many things as we could point to, with drinks to go along (the drinks menu features Dutch genever and arrack, as well as spice-inflected cocktails and Lion lager.)
Mutton rotis arrived first, with a spicy ginger-garlic dipping sauce, like wondrous breaded deep-fried kathi rolls. We would have ordered more but for the arrival of the hot butter devilled shrimps: fat, curly crustaceans, doused in an incendiary, buttery tomato-garlic sauce, showered with green onions and pickled green peppercorn. Lamb kothu roti, the roti griddled and then pan-fried with lamb, was just as good, and so were the two birds that followed: well-spiced duck in a flat roti, which came with a rasa (gravy), and quail 65, a nice rendition of legs and breast crisped in the 65 masala, topped with an enormous banana pepper and coconut flakes. An array of little bowls brought up the rear: coriander chutney, a fresh, bright gotu kola sambol, a coconut-pennywort relish run through with a pungent salty flavour (which, the menu explained, was from dried Maldivian fish flakes), a caramelised onion seeni sambol, and chilli-coconut-shallot pol sambol. And what of the appams themselves?
The simple appam was a joy in itself: the sour, fermented flavour, the crepey bowled shape, the crisp and lacy edges and the spongy middle full of give. You can even spoon your curry into the ‘bowl’ if you like (“Are you a ripper and a dipper or a tipper and a ripper?” asks Hoppers’ Instagram). The egg hopper was a star too, paper-thin and crunchy at the edges, cradling a jiggly just-fried egg in the centre.
But everything paled before the bone marrow. A thick lake of varuval pooled in the bottom of the terracotta dish, and two tree-trunks of bone rose from the middle, concealing a luxurious, creamy marrow. The varuval , which I have previously only eaten as a dry fry, accented the fattiness with its rich, Chettinad-style flavours. Hoppers provides thin metal marrow scoops and a layered flaky roti to scoop and soak up the leftovers with, but we dug in with our knives instead. Silence fell at our table, as it did at every other confronted by a varuval .
What could follow this buttery, visceral treat? The buffalo biryani was, by itself, not worth the sticker price, which is probably why they serve it in a thali with a duck egg curry, raita, and aubergine pickle. But the coconut milk fish kari was sublime: warming, but delicate, the spices just right for a dreary spring day. We never even made it to dessert, running our marrow spoons dreamily through the remains of the varuval , ordering more egg hoppers to swirl through the fish curry, and arguing about whether another plate would be overkill. Hoppers felt like a little island of warmth in the heart of London, well worth the wait.
Naintara Maya Oberoi is a food writer based in Paris
Tweet to her @naintaramaya