iDrink Café Kumbuk

Home-made soul food for the millennial crowd

Mother & daughter

The brains behind this lovely eco café is the mother-daughter duo Shana and Dinali Dandeniya. Having lived in East London for years, after coming back to Sri Lanka their passion for cooking spurred them to open up a stall at the Good Market. The rest is history, Kumbuk Café is one of the city’s pioneering places for healthy comfort food. It’s inspired by the western café culture but with its roots in Sri Lankan produce, flavours and community, much like the owners themselves.

The idea for Kumbuk Café was born in university as a final project for my advertising degree. I never thought that the idea would materialise into an actual business.
— Shana Dandeniya

Natural goodness

At Kumbuk they champion environmentally friendly, good-green, local products. Even the coffee they use is sourced locally from a fellow good-market vendor Soul Coffee: "The idea is simple, to use locally sourced ingredients to create honest, wholesome, hearty food. We try to be at the forefront of sustainable and eco-friendly products and bring that awareness to Sri Lanka and our customers, for example by not using plastic straws” says Shana. Kumbuk is a hit among Colombo’s health-conscious crowd, so much that the mother-daughter duo recently opened another Kumbuk Café at the Urban Island concept store as well as a sister café Plus Nine Four where they host interesting Sunday pop-ups, where like-minded people and creators share their skills in things like crepe making, and organic gardening.

Our favourites

We love the home-made pistachio granola, generously sprinkled over fresh fruit makes for a great start of the day. We also like the healthy smoothies, spicy chai, tofu & hummus bowls and the little guilt free chocolate coconut bliss balls. We could stay here all day!