There are some evenings that seem to arrive with their own script.
Last week, Delhi was caught in one of those unexpected downpours that transformed the city entirely. The rain came down hard, washing away the capital's usual impatience and replacing it with an unfamiliar stillness. It was on that evening that I found myself at Zetu, a new Sri Lankan restaurant tucked away in Mehrauli, and what followed felt less like discovering a restaurant and more like stumbling into a memory.
Sri Lanka has occupied a corner of my mind ever since I travelled through the island two years ago. Not in the grand, bucket-list sense of travel, but in quieter ways. Through memories of sudden rain showers rolling in from the sea, breakfasts of hoppers and sambols, long conversations over curries, and days that seemed unconcerned with urgency. It is one of those places that changes your internal rhythm without you quite realising it.
Perhaps that is why Zetu felt instantly familiar.
Set beneath a sprawling 500-year-old banyan tree at 1AQ, the restaurant has been imagined as a contemporary Sri Lankan sanctuary. Inspired by Geoffrey Bawa's tropical modernism, the space unfolds like an oasis within the city. Between the lush greens, earthy textures and open design, it felt impossible not to slow down. For a brief moment, Delhi receded into the background.
The funny thing is that my evening began with an unexpected reunion. While browsing the menu, I spotted a Gini flatbread and immediately wondered whether it had any connection to Gini in Colombo, a restaurant I had discovered quite by chance during my travels. When I asked, the answer was yes.
Suddenly what had begun as dinner turned into a conversation.
A large part of the evening was spent exchanging stories with founder Sarah Nikahetiya and chef Dush Ratnayake about Sri Lanka. About places we loved, meals we remembered and the peculiar way travel allows strangers to find common ground. There is something deeply comforting about meeting people who share your affection for a place, especially one that has left such a lasting imprint on you.
Ratnayake laughed as he told me the kitchen had become excited the moment they heard I had visited Gini in Colombo. I was equally delighted. It felt like one of those wonderfully niche conversations that only food can create.
The meal itself unfolded almost like a journey through the island. There was the Choon Paan butter flight, inspired by the tuk-tuks that deliver fresh bread through Sri Lankan neighbourhoods each morning. There were crunchy dhal bites, a dish called Procession inspired by Kandy's famous Perahera festival, lamprais, coconut curries and, of course, hoppers.
But if I am being honest, what I carried home that night was not a favourite dish. It was the feeling.
The feeling of sitting beneath an ancient tree while rain battered Delhi outside. The feeling of talking about Sri Lanka with people who clearly care about representing it thoughtfully. The feeling of finding a pocket of another country in the middle of a city that constantly reinvents itself.
Delhi has never struggled for culinary diversity, yet Sri Lankan cuisine has remained surprisingly absent from its dining conversation. Zetu changed that, but what stayed with me most was not the novelty of the cuisine. It was the sense of transport.
Somewhere between the rain, the banyan tree, the conversations and the food, I found myself thinking about Sri Lanka again. And for a few hours at least, the distance between Mehrauli and Colombo felt remarkably small.
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