Food was absolutely delicious. I felt like I went back to Sri Lanka for an hour. Spice level was a little high for my liking. But it was kinda my fault as I didn't ask for mild. However great food. Great staff. Lovely set-up.
My wife and I had a great dinner at Upali's! It was so lovely to see the restaurant full of people, even better to see that it wasn't only Sri Lankans but all different nationalities enjoying the great Sri Lankan cuisine on offer. Everyone in the restaurant was having a great time, there was laughing coming from every table, it was great to be in that environment! The service staff we all fantastic as well, always happy to help with anything and very efficient! I highly recommend if you are looking for a great to visit Upali's. If you're wanting to go on the weekend however it's probably best to book early since the place is completely full, once you come in and experience Upali's you'll see why!
Thank you for a great dinner Upali's!
Great food, great service. Highly recommend this restaurant.
Scrumptious srilankan food and excellent friendly service. Was there just yesterday for my b'day and had a lovely time. even though the house was full and we didnt make reservations they were kind enough to arrange us a table in 10 mins. I would really reccomend this to anyone who wants to experince authentic sri lankan food.
Really enjoyed my dining experience at Upail's. The staff were great and food was wonderful. We ordered the crab and it was exceptional!
We will definitely be a regular at this local gem!
Fabulous SriLankan food, highly recommend. The stringhoppers are just like the relatives used to make.
So much Srilankan can one have. Kotthu, hoppers, deviled chicken, rasam were kickass. Definitely going there again to try more �
My husband and I ate hoppers and tuna curry - they were absolutely delicious! You get 1 egg hopper and 3 plain per portion and can order more individually. Service and value very good.
Hoppers were great. Staff is friendly. Recommend for everyone who loves Sri Lankan food.
Went there for the first time on Monday night.Our waitress was very helpful and the service was good.We had White Bait as an entree and The Hoppers special as a main.Both we're excellent and such good value for money.We will definately be back !
Food here is fantastic.. Great services very friendly staff.. Love the Roast pan and sambols.. A must go place!!
This was my first kottu experience outside of Sri-Lankan and this tasted better than back home. So generous with their portion as their prices are on the higher side.
I'd wait eagerly for a place to top this taste.
I have been to this place twice. Once with my family and once with my colleagues. My colleagues enjoyed it and appreciated me to taking them to such a place. Cricket lovers will like the ambience for sure. The food is good. Their appam is a must try and I also loved the lunch menu. I didn’t liked their kothu once we went for dinner. The ambience for dinner is great. Looks like fine dining and reasonably priced for the experience.
Staying in the local area and literally stumbled on this place, the FOOD WAS VERY GOOD. We walked in without a booking and were told they had a table for us if we were out by 8:30, fine with us, we had had a big day of driving and were not looking for a late night. Strange though that it then took the a while to take our order. Everything we ate was very good, I would happily go back and experiment a bit more with the menu, because there is plenty to experiment with! Given the quality of the food we ate, I suspect that most things on the extensive menu are pretty good. Also, the number of people who look like they are from the Sri Lankan area that are eating in this place suggests that the food might be a very good representation of good Sri Lankan food.
Planned for Upalis with lot of excitement and trust me UPALI’S added more to our excitement with the choice of food they had to serve. Lot of options to choose and dine, we were confused as there were variety of dishes.
We finally ordered jackfruit ball in entree, signature Upali platter, Pittu (must try) and dessert to end with.
While I am writing the review I am still drooling 🤤
Everything we ordered was delicious. Staff were friendly and the ambience was good surrounded with some famous cricketer’s(Srilankan team) signatures. Cricket lover can spend some time until your food is served 😃
We, a group of 6 had dinner at Upali’s over the weekend. Undoubtedly one of the best Kottus ever had. Flavours were spot on. Reasonable price and good size portions. A professional staff and definitely recommend for families with young kids. Only downside was hoppers which had some kind of sourness. Otherwise it definitely deserves 5 starts.
Summary
A modern Sri-Lankan diner offering a wide cook to order range and an excellent lunch deal
Background
I’ve been to Upalis a few times over the last year
Keynotes
1.The lunch deal is excellent provided you like the choice of vegetables available on the day (this is largely a preference thing)
2.Offers a choice of red-rice which isn’t common and is great
3.Curries seem to be a little less viscous and spicier than equivalents, with less oil/thickness; I’m personally a big fan of this style
4.Servings are modest
Beef kothu rotti - pretty authentic tasting, very doughy rotti texture as usual and the meat was well cooked and chunky. Serving portions are really generous, and the spice of the beef version has the perfect amount of kick.
Service was very considerate but a tad slow given that there was pretty much no one else in the restaurant on the Tuesday night.
Upalis you got me again! It's the only place where I feel like I'm back in Colombo. The food is yummy authentic and delicious. For the price vs portion size it was worth it. Great spice level!
Love the delectable authentic Sri Lankan cuisine. We always leave with happy and full tummies. Great portion sizes too. The service and vibe are wonderful. Very inviting! I would love to hear nice Sri Lankan songs while we enjoy the lovely food, not English songs as it's a Sri Lankan restaurant. Hope you take the feedback on board and do something about the music.
Love this place. If you're into spicy food, this is the place to try out!
Had a chance to order different Lankan food which is quite authentic.
Will definitely come back again :)
The ambience is nice. I ordered many dishes and each of them have different taste. It’s a good place to choice Sri Lankan food. The fired fish taste nice. Red rice is just normal and bland nothing special, just like the white rice.but it’s a good match for the curry. The special upalis soft drink is so so, not recommended. Fired noodle is nice. My most favorite dish is the garlic roti, it taste sooooo nice!! Will try other favors later.
Great Sri Lankan restaurant, delicious food and excellent service! Our waitress Sharika was extremely helpful in choosing dishes suitable for food intolerances.
Highly recommended!
Food was delicious and the owner/host was very helpful in recommending different food options to us. Loved the Black Pork Curry and the Pennywort salad. Food was authentic and the service was excellent. Will go back.
Great food and tasted just perfectly home cooked. Highly Recommend! I will definitely be ordering again- esp the devilled cashew and string hoppers.
Extremely good food, ambience and customer service. This has become a weekend spot for me and my boyfriend. We have tried almost every dish in the menu and they are mouth watering. The best part is that the food is of great quality and very affordable.
First time diners at this lovely restaurant. The ambience was tasteful, peaceful and bright. The service was impeccable - friendly, knowledgeable, adaptable and attentive without being smothering. The food, though, is the star in this enterprise. We have never had such tasty, satisfying and authentic Sri Lankan food. We can vouch for the lamb curry, beef curry, jackfruit curry and black pork curry. The red rice was delicious and the cheese roti with spicy gravy is a must-have. The prices are spot on, too. Thank you for a great dining experience.
Love this place! Our dinner was amazing tonight! My 2 friends and I came here on a Saturday night (without a reservation),and the place was booked out! But the owner was so lovely - after hearing how we walked far to get there she let us sit on the bar table and we were happy to take it! The staff were all so so wonderful. It was such a busy night we didn’t get to thank the owner for such a great meal and service! Definitely coming back for more! Food so yummy, my friends who never had Sri Lankan meals before have found a new addiction!
If u love trying spicy and authentic Sri Lankan food...this is the place!! We were a group of 13 people and tried a lot from the menu. Everything was awesome
Roundshegoes Melbourne
+4
Very nice place. Great service. Authentic Sri Lankan food. Heaps of varieties. Highly recommended. Plenty of parking options are available too.
Loved every mouthful! Great variety of tastes! Staff were very friendly and helpful as it was our first Sri Lankan meal. Look forward to going back soon.
Food was very tasty. Service was excellent. Food came out quick. The owner had time to come over and have a chat to us. The egg rotis were amazing. The curries were well spiced and presented well. The jackfruit curry is a must try. There is so much variety on the menu. Can’t wait to try more. Only drawback was the chocolate cake, it was a little stale in taste. Otherwise all good.
First time I tried Srilankan cuisine and really enjoyed my dinner here. Food was delicious, portion generous and the price is reasonable. Staffs are really friendly and prompt.
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A favourite for Sri Lankan food whenever we visit Melbourne. We came for lunch and catch up with friends and family.
Together we ordered the Lunch Special (two curries, vegetable sides, rice and pappadams), whitebait, chicken varuwal, pork curry, spicy fish curry and egg hoppers.
The coconut sambal was fresh and tasty. The varuwal (sizzling plate) was a favourite with a variety of different flavours and textures. The curries had depths of spices reminiscent to those we encountered in Sri Lanka.
We also ordered the Upalis Thirst Quencher- nice honey flavours, however a bit too sweet.
Some of our company could not have too much spice, and the restaurant was more than happy to accommodate them by using milder spices.
Service was very friendly and helpful. Ambience was smart-casual with numerous cricket memorabilia on the walls.
Overall, a solid restaurant. In fact, a couple of our company, who had never had Sri Lankan food before, thought it was a wonderful experience and are fans of Sri Lankan cuisine now!
DELICIOUS 👍🏼
This restaurant was super duper good and it was my first time trying Sri Lankan food and I was so impressed. When we first walked in we were greeted with friendly and welcoming faces 😊 the hot butter prawns were delicious and they were definitely worth a try! We also tried the crab and that was really good and there was lots of flavour and taste. The service was exceptional as the staff treated us really well and they were all polite😋 The prices weren't too high and it was reasonable for the quality of the food. I would come back again for some more yummy Sri Lankan food 🥘
Great experience - three visits in the last month. Every occasion was memorable - in a positive way. The food has been great everytime. Cathy, who I think managers the place, has been fantastic and is a real dynamo. The Hot Butter Cuttlefish .... I think it was..... was magnificent. Great food and service. Highly recommended.
Good food, friendly service, centrally located and spacious setting. Service was abit slow during the lunchtime despite not many customers and given that we had ordered the lunch special which was already readily available at the bainmarie. But the food was tasty and in generous portions at a reasonable price, so all was forgiven - maybe cos we were so hungry!
We went here for lunch and it was lovely. We had the mixed plate which had a pan roll, 2 patties and 3 fish balls which were really yum. We then had prawn curry with rice and Dahl. The sauce in the prawn curry was amazing, I could of had that on its own, it was so yummy but unfortunately the prawns weren't the best, they were very overlooked. Rice was good and so was the Dahl. Will go back, so many things to try, thank you
This is my first experience to have Sri Lankan cuisines and I was quite impressed with Upalis's delicious food. All dishes including vegetarian one were really good. The restaurant is clean and the owner was lovely. Other staff also were kind and friendly. I will come back to try another food.
Authentic Sri Lankan cuisine that makes you doesn't miss your home.
To die for is the Upalis set menu with a finishing of chocolate biscuit pudding.
The ambiance is great and the staff was very friendly.
Popped in to Upalis for the first time today with an Afghan friend who I've been slowly introducing into Sri Lankan food. We ordered the lunchtime set meal as he is a seafood bandit and I indulged on my go to 'kothu rotti'.
Both of us are cricket tragics and were very impressed with all the memorabilia and Sri Lankan cricket paraphernalia proudly displayed on the walls.
Already stoked with the ambience and the friendly staff, the food matched and surpassed our already high expectations. The lamb kothu was spiced perfectly and delivered a punch as well. The fish curry in the set meal was cooked to perfection and the accompaniment of vegetable dishes, papadums and a mild coconut sambal all delivered in what was a knockout meal.
Will definitely be back again and the staff were exceptionally polite and helpful.
Great Sri Lankan food, and friendly service at a reasonable price. Much better tasting and healthier food than most of the greasy Indian places around. Certainly the real deal as far as Sri Lankan food goes.
Aravinda Seneviratne
+4.5
Authentic, full of flavor and really worth a visit! Great restaurant with friendly staff as well! Highly recommend it. Their rice and curry lunch deal is definitely value for money!
Really good Lankan food!! Just ordered takeaway - cashew curry, jackfruit curry and vegetarian kothu roti with egg. Was more than happy with it all - my favourite was probably the kothu. There was more than enough to feed two with leftovers. Just as good as Elephant corridor with better prices. Highly recommend a visit! And look forward to eating in next time!
Firstly I must say how great the service was. From the time we walked in till the time we left. We sat around talking, eating & drinking coffee for hours. The food was great. Amazing flavours. The woman who served us knew what she talking about & helped us understand the dishes & how to order. Really glad we came here.
Nice food.. Good Table Service.. Reasonable price and specials most of the time.. kothu roti is tasty there.. Cricket Souvenir on walls..i will come back again..
We came here for dinner. Food is authentic Sri Lankan. Unfortunately the service is poorly co-ordinated. We had three different persons who asked for our orders and it does take a little bit longer for the food do arrive. Be prepared to wait but enjoy. I hope they can be better organised!!!
This is the second time I have been here. The Sri Lankan cuisines definietly lives up to their authencity! Seems like a popular venue on a Saturday night.
We had the handala dish as a strater. Follwed by sizzling chicken, black pork, egg plant, lamb kottu and white rice. The portions were more than enough for four people. We ended with doggy bags to carry home. Highly recommend the Kottu roti! The wattalapam is a must try too.
My only criticism is wait on the mains. But the wait staff is extremely friendly and helpful.
If you want a Lankan feed in Melbourne you should visit!
We've dined here for weekend lunch on at least two occasions recently. With a Sri Lankan husband, its always high-pressure for the SL restaurants to live up to the authenticity needs of ex-pats. The service is prompt and not in your face, everything we have tried on the menu has pleased, from string hoppers, to set lunch special and curries. I wasn't as partial to the egg curry, not that it wasn't good, just not to my liking. The hot buttered cuttlefish is freshly cooked and flavoursome - although not as close the 'real thing' my husband recalls from back home (its still very more-ish!). We will continue to come here for our SL fix.
Melbourne is just a haven for authentic foods from so many different nations, and this place just proves the point for Sri Lankan cuisine.
Food : I had the lunch set special - red rice, pappadams, 3 vegetable combination, chicken curry and dry sambal. Tastes divine combining all these flavours together. Only (minor) gripe was that the latte I had ordered came out more like a flat white.
Service : I came at a quiet time (late lunch), but service was very good. Server patiently explained to me what the dishes were that were served to me.
Ambience : Tastefully decorated surroundings inspired by a Sri Lankan theme. Some Sri Lankan cricket jerseys hung on the wall.
Been here for lunch. Service was outstanding. We tried Faluda to start with. It was delicious. When the Sri Lankan lunch served to our table we were so excited. Definitely a winner.
Excellent food, been here may times and will keep coming back. Owners are running this place like a great restaurant. Other Sri Lankan restaurants around the area should take note.
The Whippeteers have been to Upalis twice now and LOVE IT.
The Curries, the hoppers, the SRI LANKAN STOUT (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED).
Above all the SERVICE from the FRONT OF HOUSE is FABULOUS.
I've been here twice now. Service is amazing - from someone who prides himself on good customer service, having worked in retail for over 15 years.
Cathy, David and their family are wonderful people who have a wonderful mix of authentic Sri Lankan cuisine and modern Western decor, not to mention the epic Sri Lankan cricket memorabilia!
I feel that a restaurant like this is what Melbourne needs - bridging the gap between Australian society and Sri Lankan culture! Would highly recommend it for anyone wanting to try Sri Lankan food right through to the experienced Machan!
කෑම ලෑස්තියි (Food Is Ready)
+4
Came here for lunch on a week day. The service was excellent. We ordered from the buffet but was served sides in little clay pots in typical Sri Lankan style. It's been a while since I've had a mulagatuwny soup and I was quite happy they had it in the menu and it was good. To end it I just had to have the chocolate biscuit pudding which was made to true Sri Lankan taste!
Had the fish curry lunch set special and it was delicious and cheap! Can't complaint at all. Comes with so many different condiments to round out a lovely meal.
The lunch set is amazing. So much so that I haven't dared stray from ordering anything else in the times ive been there for dine in or take away. Delicious destination for breakfast lunch and dinner or just a few drinks. Great menu, diverse feel and great setup. Love the chilli dried fish that accompanies the set.
The very instant i opened the container with my food, it reminded me instantly of the Sri Lankan curry my friend's mum had prepared for us. This place is sensational. The food is fresh, tasty and the restaurant itself is so elegant. The food is so delicious, i am craving it 24/7. Such kind and friendly staff. You have to eat and/or dine here.
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