Sort-of Secret: Jaffna Street Food, a father-son team bringing Tamil dishes to the downtown core

The sort-of secret: Jaffna Street Food, a father-son duo specializing in Tamil food You may have heard of it if: You’re a regular at the Village by the Grange food court
But you probably haven’t tried it because: It just opened a few months ago

In the summer of 1983, anti-Tamil riots in Sri Lanka started a 26-year civil war that displaced thousands of people, many of whom came to Canada as refugees. Today, Canada has one of the largest Tamil diasporas in the world—around 237,890, according to the 2021 census—and half of them are in the GTA. In 2022, Heritage Toronto published a digital tour showcasing how Tamil refugees became the backbone of the city’s restaurant industry during the 1980s, staffing almost a third of kitchens. So why are there only a handful of Tamil restaurants in the downtown core?

Related: “I was a teenage political prisoner in war-torn Sri Lanka. Today, I’m one of Canada’s top financial executives”

“This is just my theory, but I think it comes from a place of fear,” says Nero Naveendran. Naveendran’s father and co-owner Naveendran Tharmalingam (who also goes by Tom) has worked in the industry for 40 years. He started as a chef in Switzerland making Italian and German dishes, then he owned a restaurant in Ajax before the recession killed it in 2006. For the past decade, he’s operated a booming catering business. Despite his impressive resumé, Tharmalingam was hesitant to start a customer-facing storefront identifying solely with Tamil flavours. “Tamil chefs make Italian food, Asian food—everything but their own food. And even when they do make their own food, they call it Indian food or Sri Lankan food,” says Naveendran. “Maybe it’s this deep-seated fear we have, as refugees, that the mainstream population won’t like our food.”

Going into business together was something the father-son duo always dreamed of. For a while, Tharmalingam bounced around the idea of opening a wing spot, then a pasta shop. Naveendran, however, was set on helping to fill the Tamil food void in the downtown core. He recalls a time when his dad worked as a chef at the cafeteria inside American Express’s Scarborough office. One day, Tharmalingam put kothu roti on the menu—once people got a taste, they started lining up for it. When he came home and told the family, Naveendran was the first to say, “See, Dad, they love our food!”

Before starting Jaffna, Naveendran was working as a real estate agent. When business was slow earlier this year, he took the opportunity to find some restaurant real estate of his own, landing on a space available in the Village by the Grange. “I love this food court,” he says. “I used to come here all the time—there are so many different cuisines on offer. And the customers are amazing and so willing to try new food.”

With a little bit of marketing magic, Jaffna Street Food makes Tamil dishes accessible for people who have never tried them before—mainly by giving them simple names like “rice bowls” and “Jaffna wraps.” For first-timers, Naveendran recommends the rice bowl, which comes with a choice of protein (chicken, mutton or soya kari—the Tamil word for curry), sambal, and assorted veggies and sauces. There’s also classic kothu roti, of course, made nice and spicy to order.

But the breakfast menu offers the sleeper hit: paal appam, a coconut-milk pancake made from fermented rice and coconut with a soft middle and crispy edge. Customers can order it sweet, with coconut milk on top, or savoury, with a sunny-side-up egg. And hearty snacks like mutton rolls, chicken Jaffna patties and fish cutlets pair well with Jaffna’s signature kopi (coffee) and paal tea blends, made with Ceylon tea leaves that are simmered with spices and sweetened with condensed milk. Although their main menu is traditional, they do have a few fusion features, like the Jaffna fries, tossed with fresh green chilies, red onions and signature sauce, and the Jaffna poutine, topped with spiced kari and a pile of squeaky cheese curds.

“When I used to work at an office downtown, my co-workers would always ask if my family made samosas at home,” says Naveendran. “We don’t do samosas and we don’t do butter chicken. We do mutton rolls and fish cutlets.” Instead, Naveendran and his father have kept it authentic with strictly Tamil flavours, and the lunch crowd is loving it.