Love Letters to Sri Lanka from Colombo Foodies Noosa
Ida Fink Gundtoft discovers something electrifying about watching a woman step fully into her calling to deliver heartfelt food from her homeland.
At Colombo Foodies opposite the river at Noosaville, energy comes in shades of turmeric gold, hot chilli red, in coconut cream silkiness and curry leaf crackle. There is laughter, conversation and salivation with flavour-packed food that is unmistakably from Udeshika ‘Udee’ Suradasa.
Udee was born in Colombo, near the southern beaches of Sri Lanka, where the humidity is high and streets vibrant – and where food is less of a meal and more a ritual of gathering your community. Udee grew up cooking with her mother, aunties and grandmother. There were no measuring cups. No written recipes. Just intuition. They would wander into the backyard and pick what the land offered – coconuts, herbs, vegetables – and return to the kitchen guided by instinct.
“There were coconuts everywhere,” she laughs, recalling that in her childhood, food was language, comfort and culture all at once. “We cook all the time, it’s like a love language,” she says of Sri Lankan women. Lunch wasn’t a plate for one; it was a feast.
Five curries with rice, sambols and whatever protein she had handy. So many colours on one plate.
“That’s exactly how we eat in Sri Lanka,” she says of what inspired her now-famous five-curry lunch offering at Colombo Foodies.
As a young girl, she would watch family and friends return from Australia with suitcases full of gifts. It was the highlight of the year (almost better than birthdays). Australia shimmered in her imagination like something mythical.
At 18 she asked her father if she could go. At 19, she landed, wide-eyed and determined, and enrolled at TAFE to study cooking.
“I’m lucky I found my passion early on in life,” she says.
For 20 years, she worked in other people’s kitchens starting in Melbourne for 12 years, Canberra for two and eventually Noosa, where she would plant roots. She trained in classical European styles, navigating French technique and Italian precision, working under strong personalities and strict hierarchies.
For years, creative freedom was a distant dream. She cooked what she was told to cook. She followed systems. She absorbed pressure. Being a woman in professional kitchens was not always gentle. There were sleepless nights and tears after shifts, followed by mornings when she rose despite being awake all night with her children who were young at the time.
“There are no shortcuts for success,” she says simply. So she kept going.
In Noosa, she counts herself lucky to work with chef Peter Kuruvita at Noosa Beach House (now known as Cibaria Noosa). His passion for cooking Sri Lankan food resonated deeply with Udee who says that his commitment to celebrating Sri Lankan cuisine and culture had been a guiding light for her.
“This career saved me,” she says and today, as owner and head chef of Colombo Foodies on Noosa River, she stands in a kitchen that is finally, unequivocally, hers.
“Creative freedom,” she smiles. “I don’t need to ask anyone for anything.”
Her cooking is still guided by intuition, memory and touch; the ingredients themselves actually ‘touch her’, she says, leading the way as much as any recipe ever could. She keeps a long list of Sri Lankan and South Asian classics with her supplier – jackfruit, okra, curry leaves, exotic herbs.
“At least give me one out of this list every day,” she told him. He accepted the challenge. Every morning, she and her team unpack deliveries like children at Christmas.
“It’s always interesting to see what my supplier shows up with,” she says. “We come in and look at the deliveries like, ‘What’s on today?’ Every day is different.”
When curry leaves arrive, they don’t just land in curries – they find their way into cocktails, like the Curry Leaf Mojito. Nothing is wasted and everything is celebrated. A philosophy that keeps her playful and curious… and very much alive to the endless possibilities of what each new ingredient might become.
Her food is a love letter to Sri Lanka – to her family; her upbringing; and her culture.
“I want people to come here for the experience, not just because they’re hungry,” she says. “I am talking to people through the food.”
And she really does talk. Udee moves through the restaurant chatting with diners, checking plates, sharing stories. She wants guests to feel as though they are in her private kitchen. Once, a customer asked her, “Is this something you would cook for your family and do you love cooking it?” She was taken aback. “Yes,” she replied.
“Then I’ll have it,” he said. That moved her deeply. “There’s a lot of trust between the chef and the customer here,” she says. “This is a people business.”
If Colombo Foodies is her professional dream realised, it is also a family affair. Her chef’s jacket, she says, is the most comfortable piece of clothing she owns.
“It’s like I’m breathing much easier when I am wearing it,” she says. It is armour, comfort and pride all at once.
Behind the scenes is family: her husband, who sometimes has to drag her home because she could keep going all night, and her children, who have their own uniforms for working in the restaurant. The youngest, just eight years old, basically begs Udee to come and help out on weekends. Since opening on Boxing Day 2025, they have been open seven days a week. No breaks.
“It’s not like I’m working,” she shrugs. “It’s like I’m just feeding the community.”
Her eldest daughter, she says is her ‘backbone’. In a house full of kids and a restaurant full of customers, that support has been everything.
“I couldn’t do any of it without the support of my family,” Udee says.
When building the business, Udee chose local tradies, community connections, and small operators. She wanted to build something that fed more than just appetites.
In return, the community has embraced her.
“I feel that I can grow here,” she says of Noosa. “The creativity can grow.”
Two decades in a foreign country, and she feels she is only just beginning.
In a world that often measures success in gold stars or status, Udee measures it in something else: full tables, empty plates and conversations that linger into the night. ‘Kings and Queens’, she calls her guests. And she feeds them as such.
Dreams do not arrive fully formed; they are kneaded, tempered and simmered over time. And as Udee would know first hand, demanding resilience and risk at every stage. Udee has lived that truth in every chapter of her journey. From coconut-laden backyards in Colombo to the colourful plates of Noosa, she has worked her way to the top, not by shortcut, but by heart.
And in every dish that leaves her kitchen, you can taste it.
