One Up All Day Breakfast is a little café breaking all conventional breakfast rules by serving breakfast all day long from 8:00AM to 4:00PM from Tuesday to Sunday. Owned by Divanka Candappa, the café is located right opposite St. Peters College on Galle Road and is right above Tom Yum. 

Having opened very recently, it has already become one of the most trending cafés in Colombo right now. 

Ambience 

One Up is hosted in a very tiny space with just 5-6 tables. It’s artistically designed and is actually an Instagrammer’s dream background for pictures. The place follows a blue and grey theme and all table tops are decorated with a vase filled with fresh flowers which we thought was an nice touch. 

The atmosphere is very cosy and chilled out and is the kind of place that you meet up with your friends for a quick brunch and chat. 

Food 

The menu is courtesy of New Zealand chef, Caleb Kloeg who has had experience with food all his life. Their menu is quite simple offering about 10 breakfast dishes that embody Western breakfasts. And maybe just one of the best things about One Up is the fact that they kept their dishes authentic and doesn’t attempt to put a “Sri Lankan twist” to it as so many restaurants do when they serve Western meals. 

That’s not to say that One Up doesn’t have its own twist to the dishes. They’ve taken basic breakfasts like poached eggs and French toast and made it into culinary art in terms of taste and presentation. 

We tried their Eggspert at Rs. 600 which is basically offering you eggs made to your choosing, be it scrambled, sunny side up or runny (we opted to have scrambled eggs well-made) along with a house made tomato relish and ciabatta. The dish was made with about 3 eggs so we had a massive portion of scrambled eggs with two slices of ciabatta and a spoon of tomato relish. The tomato relish was spicy so it cut through the usual blandness of the scrambled eggs and gave the dish an edge to it. 

We then tried their famous Margot Robbie at Rs. 1500 which, until your dish arrives, seems like a hefty price to pay for French toast. But when the dish is right in front of you, it’s easy to understand why it’s on the pricy end. The presentation is borderline artistic that it makes you have a minute or two of doubt on whether you really want to cut into your breakfast and ruin the art. But of course, hunger triumphs pretty presentation and when you cut into the toast, the flavours definitely triumph the art. This is not your ordinary French toast. This dish is brioche French toast served with a lemon and passion fruit curd and caramelized banana garnished with fresh strawberries, whipped coconut, maple and edible fresh flowers. It’s a whole bunch of flavours I wouldn’t have ever thought of placing together but the flavours together was fantastic! The toast was crunchy and wasn’t overly soaked in the egg batter and the caramelized banana and the whipped coconut complimented the toast by adding sweetness to it. We could clearly understand why it’s a crowd favourite! 

We also one of their sandwich dishes called Stone the Flamming Chooks at Rs. 1700 which is fried masala chicken, avocado, tomatoes, cheddar, siriacha and pickles mashed in between two crunchy pieces of sandwich buns. If you are looking for a crunch this is definitely a dish to try out. The chicken and the avocado worked well and the bread had a crunchy crust that we loved. 

Other options on the menu include Mr. Benny (poached egg served with smoked salmon, egg or avocado), Neopolitan (toasted granola, yoghurt and fresh fruit) and Sydneysider (ricotta hotcakes, berry compote and banana) among others. 

You can also choose to order a few add ons like hashbrown, smoked salmon, chicken bacon, fried chicken, fries or salad for a few extra. 

Beverages 

The drinks menu is short and sweet. You can either order fresh juices or coffee. You can order a single fruit juice or a combination of several fruits for the same price at Rs. 600. 

And as for coffee, you can choose from black and white hot coffee or iced coffee, iced chocolate, iced mocha or affogato for Rs. 400-500 depending on whether you order a small or a large. The in house café barista from New Zealand, Alijoscha Felber is said to brew a mean cup of coffee! 

Service 

They take the order very fast and even though the place is very tiny and packed they’ll always find space for you. 

But, if you are hungry be prepared to wait a while for the food. Our food took around 45 minutes to arrive so if you are in a hurry or just hungry; get someone to place the order ahead. Aside from this, the service is great. When we couldn’t finish our Margot Robbie they offered to take the remaining back into the kitchen and top it up with maple syrup so we can finish it off which we thought was a value addition to their café because many restaurants don’t particularly care if you finished your meal or not and they certainly don’t go out of their way to help you finish it! 

Overall 

Overall, our meal went smoothly and without any complaints. It’s a great place for brunch and a cosy spot for a quick meal with friends. We loved the interior and the ambience and were impressed with the presentation of the dishes. The food was great and even though it’s on the pricey end, we felt that it was a worthy meal! 

Address: 330, Galle Road, Bambalapitiya (Opposite St. Peters College) 
Contact: (011) 2 508 201 

Instagram: @oneupalldaybreakfast