South Indian and Sri Lankan tasting menu restaurant in KLCC, Kuala Lumpur

Nadodi

Nomad Cooking on Jalan Ampang

4 of 5

Nadodi means nomad, and the name is honest. The cooking follows the old routes that spices, cooks and grandmothers took between Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Sri Lanka, then lands them in a tower on Jalan Ampang. That sounds like a pitch deck. On the plate it is something better: food that tastes like where it came from, wearing a good suit.

The restaurant now lives on Level 7A of the Four Seasons, and the kitchen is run by Chef Yavhin Siriwardhana, a second-generation Malaysian with Sri Lankan and Malayali roots. He cooks familiar southern dishes in unfamiliar shapes without sanding off the heat, the sourness or the coconut. That is the hard part. Plenty of kitchens can make a curry look like jewellery. Very few keep it tasting like somebody's mother is still watching. There are nine courses at dinner and six at lunch, each with a vegetarian version. Ask for the pairing, or let Vér, the bar, pour you something with tamarind in it.

It is expensive, the tablecloth kind of expensive, so pick your occasion. For anyone raised between the Gulf and the subcontinent, a meal here plays like a family reunion where everyone finally learned some manners. Go at lunch if you want the story without the full bill. Go at dinner if you want the whole road.

Order this

The nine-course menu at dinner, The six-course menu at lunch, The vegetarian version of either, which is not a consolation prize, The beverage pairing, or a cocktail from Vér, the bar

The damage

$$$$

Go

Monday to Saturday, noon to 10.30 p.m.; the six-course lunch is the gentler way in

Find it

Level 7A, Four Seasons Hotel Kuala Lumpur, 145 Jalan Ampang, 50450 Kuala Lumpur

Website

nadodikl.com