Portland’s Only Sri Lankan Restaurant Is Also One of Its Best Vegan Spots

It’s no secret that Portland is a culinary hot spot. In a city so rich with incredible places to eat, it can be hard for some places to stand out. Not so for Mirisata, Portland’s only Sri Lankan restaurant. Since launching in 2020, this worker-owned cooperative has become a local institution, amassing a dedicated fan base of vegans and non-vegans alike. Through heaping portions of flavorful curries and flaky stuffed rotis, the folks at Mirisata are introducing the rich flavors of Sri Lanka—and the versatility of vegan cuisine—to a wide and growing audience.

Mirisata | Instagram

RELATED: From Jackfruit Curry to Kottu Roti and Fried Eggplant, 5 Must-Make Sri Lankan Recipes

How Mirisata was founded

Mirisata’s journey can be traced to a series of happy accidents. It all started when co-founding worker-owner Alex Felsinger—whose father hails from Sri Lanka—started cooking Sri Lankan food for his pals. “My now-wife and I would have friends over, and every time people would be very excited about the food. And then people started asking us if they could come over for dinner.” However, Felsinger’s dog wasn’t comfortable with guests, so he decided to throw a popup at a local vegan restaurant instead. The date he picked? March 10, 2020. Less than two weeks later, the Covid pandemic had reached a tipping point in Oregon, prompting the governor to issue a stay-at-home order. For many people, Mirisata’s popup would be their last dine-in experience for a very long time.

As the pandemic progressed, Felsinger—along with his friend Ro (who’s also a worker-owner) and local vegan chef Simar—decided to do takeaway-only pop-ups. “We were charging just enough to cover the cost of food and the [kitchen] space,” said Felsinger. However, the kitchen’s landlord found a full-time renter, and the folks at Mirisata had nowhere else to go. “We were looking for a new space to do pop-ups because we weren’t trying to open a restaurant.” Just by chance, they ended up finding a catering kitchen with almost all the equipment they needed—and a big parking lot that was perfect for transforming into a socially distanced patio space. It was then that Mirisata went from pop-up to full-blown restaurant.

Mirisata

Understanding Sri Lankan fare

Although Sri Lankan gastronomy has some similarities with the cuisines of South India—including quite a few dishes in common—it’s pretty different from what you’ll find at most Indian restaurants in the States. “It’s a unique cuisine,” says Felsinger.

“Sometimes, people who have never had it before will make the assumption that it’s just like Indian food—and then they’re surprised when it’s not.”

One key distinction is that many North Indian dishes—including vegetarian options—go heavy on cream, yogurt, and ghee made from cow or buffalo milk. You won’t find a similar penchant for dairy products in tropical Sri Lanka. Coconuts are ubiquitous on the island, and both the nuts and the sap of this versatile tree are used to add both thickness and flavor to Sri Lankan dishes. The team at Mirisata takes great care to use traditional ingredients—including coconut sap vinegar and Sri Lanka’s native Ceylon cinnamon (rather than the more commonly used Cassia cinnamon).

This is great news for vegans: traditionally, many Sri Lankan dishes are “accidentally vegan,” and meat is typically seen as a small component of a larger complete meal rather than the main act.

Mirisata

“[The curries] are not something we had to veganize,” Felsinger explains. “If you’re in Sri Lanka and go to pretty much any restaurant—especially up in the mountains away from the coast—the food that you’ll see out on a buffet is going to be the same type of food that we serve here in our rice-and-curry plate.”

Mirisata’s rice-and-curry plate is a must-try for first-time visitors to the restaurant, whether they’re familiar with Sri Lankan food or looking for the perfect introduction. Expect a generous portion of rice served with parippu (dal) plus an assortment of curries with different spice levels, flavor profiles, and temperatures presented the classic way: on a banana leaf. The idea is to mix different items together to create a new combination of flavors with every bite, like a culinary choose-your-own-adventure experience.

The exact offerings change a few times a week and can range from savory garlic curry (think melt-in-your-mouth cloves of garlic cooked in a light gravy) to fragrant deviled potatoes, perfect for balancing out some of the spicier offerings. For added variety, diners may choose between an assortment of condiments, notably pol sambol (grated coconut salad with a light chili-pepper kick), seeni sambal (sweet-and-spicy caramelized onion chutney), or achcharu (pickled medley featuring green papaya).

Mirisata

Portland vegan treasures

The rice-and-curry plate is only the beginning: Mirisata also serves a wide variety of fried street food snacks—including rolls and cutlets—that are known in Sri Lanka (and on the Mirisata menu) as “short eats.” Many of these treats have been veganized, including the “beef” rolls, hearty rolls with breaded crisp exteriors that give way to a stuffing of pillowy potatoes and Impossible beef, served with spicy-tangy green chili sauce. For a vegan-by-default classic, opt for the parippu vade, savory fritters made from pigeon peas and fried to crisp-on-the-outside, soft-on-the-inside perfection.

If the idea of buttery, flaky flatbread served hot from the griddle sounds heavenly, opt for a roti combo—served with an assortment of curries and condiments—or order a piece of the tasty flatbread on the side. The stuffed rotis are among the newer additions to the Mirisata menu and have been wildly popular from the get-go. If you can only choose one, go for the cheese roti, made with melty cashew cheese sourced from Portland food cart Pizza Creature. “It’s some of the best vegan cheese I’ve had,” says Felsinger. This writer concurs.

Mirisata

Mirisata also has a small selection of Lankan-Chinese dishes on the menu, plant-based expressions of Sri Lanka’s spin on Chinese fare. One of the most popular dishes at Mirisata—the deviled “pork”—falls into this category. This dish is made of breaded soy curls that are stir-fried in deviled sauce for just long enough to have a bit of crunch on the outside while still staying soft on the inside. Big chunks of tomatoes, red onions, and banana peppers are thrown into the mix to add even more zeal to the dish. The result? A delightful dish that mixes not only textures, but also smoky, sweet, tangy, and spicy flavors that blend perfectly, but are still distinctive enough to make every delicious bite its own unique experience.

Although the portions at Mirisata are gargantuan, it’s crucial to make room for dessert. For a true taste of Sri Lanka, order the watalappan, a classic Sri Lankan custard made from a mix of coconut milk, cashews, and kithul jaggery (a popular sweetener made from palm sap). Banana split fans must try the vaipan sundae, banana fritters topped with vanilla ice cream and drenched in housemade cardamom caramel.

A vegan lesson in versatility

Although much of Mirisata’s success can be attributed to their culinary wizardry, the ability to make delicious food alone is—sadly—not always enough to keep restaurants afloat. One of the keys to Mirisata’s continued success is their willingness to adapt, grow, and change things up when need be—all while staying true to their ethos. One way that they’ve done this is by sunsetting some of their more labor-intensive dishes—including a chopped roti fry-up known as kottu and idiyappam (also known as “string hoppers,” ultra-thin rice noodles made using a special machine that the team imported from Sri Lanka).

Cooper’s Co-op Café

Perhaps the biggest testament to Mirisata’s adaptability came in late 2023, when the team launched a ghost kitchen concept—Cooper’s Co-op Café—which serves Western breakfast favorites such as fluffy American-style pancakes and hearty full-English breakfasts every morning, plus takeaway and delivery-only sandwiches and snacks later in the day. “We had a theory that our brunch wasn’t as busy as we hoped it would be because of families where one person just wanted a very typical American breakfast and another person wanted to try something new and unique,” Felsinger explains. The concept worked, and the summer of 2024 proved to be busier than ever. “[Business at] Mirisata will fluctuate sometimes, but with Cooper’s, we can count on it to be steadier.”

Opening Cooper’s has helped Mirisata draw in a greater number of diners, introducing more people to plant-based food and—by proxy—veganism in the process. As the only Sri Lankan restaurant in Oregon, Mirisata also attracts plenty of people who aren’t necessarily seeking out vegan food. “Anyone who wants to try Sri Lankan food has to come here,” says Felsinger. “So they’ll end up trying a vegan restaurant whether they notice it or not!”