World Refugee Day 2026: This Sri Lankan eatery shares a lesson in belonging through flavours

On World Refugee Day, it is hard not to think of the famous phrase Yaadhum Oore, Yaavarum Kelir. At Adisil, located inside the Ripon Building, that maxim is no longer an ancient ideal but something tangible, served on a plate.

The simplest route to belonging may be through lunch

Most of Chennai does not know this canteen exists yet. It is run entirely by Sri Lankan Tamil refugees, many of whom live in a camp in Puzhal. Adisil is not a charity project you visit out of goodwill. It is a genuinely good place to eat.

Backed by the Greater Chennai Corporation and UNHCR, and coordinated by Oferr and siCCI, the project saw restaurateur M Mahadevan train and mentor the team.

“Food is a vehicle for making people included and integrated,” says Satchithananda Valan Michael, Head of Field Office at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and one of the driving forces behind the project. “The refugees have been here for 30 or 40 years, and the problem they face is the inability to integrate despite their long stay.”

We started with the Puttu, available in godhumai, red rice and kurakkan varieties, served alongside kadala kulambu, sodhi and sambal. The red rice puttu is the one: dense, nutty, and tinged pink. The katta sambal beside it delivers a sharp, concentrated heat from dry-pounded chillies, tamarind, onion and salt.

In a state separated from Sri Lanka by little more than a narrow stretch of sea, Adisil offers not just a cuisine but a conversation. One that reminds us, especially on World Refugee Day, that belonging can begin with something as simple as sharing a meal. If the cuisine shares a grammar with Tamil Nadu with only a slight change in dialect, how different can we really be?

The Palaya soru thengapaal kanji are made for Chennai’s summer. Then came the Kothu roti, crisp-edged, spicy and impossible to stop eating. Crispy, spicy, addictive in the way that only things made with genuine care tend to be. We kept reaching across the table for more and it kept being worth it.

The Prawn gravy followed, rich with house-roasted chillies that add remarkable depth. We finished with Nei soru and a north-eastern Sri Lankan-style chicken curry, a coriander forward one at that.

Meal for two: ₹300 approximately. From 7.30 am to 7 pm (closed on Sundays).
At Adisil, Periamet, Chennai.

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