Melbourne’s Sri Lankan Restaurants Didn’t Cook Over Traditional Wood Fires – Until Now

Agnii was always the plan for Gayan Pieris. The Sri Lankan-born chef describes his well-regarded Red Hill restaurant Many Little as something like a diversion.

“It’s not something I planned,” he says. “It happened during Covid – the community welcomed me to the Peninsula and I sort of started running the restaurant there. The dream I’ve had for so long is to open a suburban Sri Lankan restaurant. Agnii was my original concept.”

When you realise the specifics of Agnii, you understand why Pieris has held onto the dream for eight or more years. Basque restaurant Asador Etxebarri began inspiring chefs across the Western world from 1990, when it revived the ancient practice of cooking over burning wood. That influence persists today at restaurants like Embla, Adelaide’s Arkhe, Perth’s Manuka and Sydney’s Firedoor, which is led by chef Lennox Hastie, who spent five years stoking flames at Etxebarri.

Sri Lankan chefs and home cooks, on the other hand, never really stopped playing with fire. In many a kussiya (kitchen), you’ll find a dara lipa, an open clay hearth where earthenware pots are heated over open fire, and a poranuwa, an enclosed hearth more akin to a kiln or oven. And Agnii (“fire” in Sanskrit) will have these two essential bits of kit.

“In a commercial kitchen context, I don’t think it’s ever been done before,” Pieris says. “We believe cooking in clay pots has an impact with the flavours. When you keep using those clay pots again and again and again, they build their own character. We call it adding soul into it. Once you break an ancestral clay pot, it’s a big deal for us.”

But cooking isn’t the only thing you can achieve with a hearth. The poranawa also plays a crucial role in the production of umbalakada – where bonito or tuna is hung for days and days to dry and absorb smoke. The result is comparable with Japanese katsuoboshi and is used to add umami depth to sambals and curries. Fruits like banana and pineapple can also be hung over a poranawa to add a more interesting dimension.

Fragrant rivergum and applewood smoke won’t be the only smells at Agnii, though. A custom ayurvedic scent designed by Colombo-based business Healing Island will permeate the room, designed by architect Craig Gorman of Mills Gorman (also behind Maison Batard) to feature earthy terracotta hues that reflect the kitchen’s materiality. Certain dishes will be served on timber plates hand-carved by Pieris’s brother.

Pieris is also excited to rep the food from his home region of Kandy, which features lots of finger millet, sesame and cassava. The kitchen will source spices and kithul (palm syrup) directly from Sri Lanka, while continuing to rely on Polperro Farm and other Mornington Peninsula producers for veggies.

“Even though the island is so small, there are big regional differences,” he says. “Like, we make this thing called thalapa out of finger millet that’s almost like hummus. It’s silky and warm – the consistency is between a puree and a porridge, and then you submerge that in a stew made out of seven different legume seeds and cook it on a really low heat for hours. And then over the top you put smoke-dried venison, almost like beef jerky.”

Agnii will open at 105 Chapel Street, Windsor in August 2026.