Lankan Filling Station

A tale of ten spices and a curry powder

A spice story and compilation of culinary meditations

After years of journeying around market stalls and pop-ups, O Tama Carey finally found a home for her hoppers on Darlinghurst’s Riley Street in 2018. The city of Sydney has been thanking her ever since – the heady combination of traditional Sri Lankan home cooking, freshly ground spices and modern touches both delighting locals and thrilling critics from all over the globe.

Here O Tama tells the tale of the curry powder that forms the backbone of her Sri Lankan cooking and is used as the base for a dazzling array of distinctly flavoured dishes, along with chapters on each of the nine spices that go into making it.

Filled with memories and observations, it is both an invitation to journey through the digressive mind of a top chef at work, and a hymn to one very special, singular recipe. Like Lankan itself, this promises to be an unmissable treat.