Local sustainable seafood is in the spotlight at Sri Lanka’s award-winning restaurant Ministry of Crab, ranked 25th in Asia’s 50 Best restaurants.
With its high ceiling and mood lighting, it is among the city’s best designed spaces. But while the elegant design is worth the Instagram post, it’s really the food that takes centerstage.
It has the signature garlic chili crabs and black pepper crabs, Filipino favorites such as guinataang crab and steamed pinakurat crab. They even have crab sisig and fresh lumpia stuffed with palm hearts and crab meat. All seafood is sourced locally.
It is an advocacy owners—chef Dharshan Munidasa and cricket players Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara—have long championed in their other branches, including in Shanghai.
“Anywhere you go in the world, you get good quality crab and bad quality crabs. It’s the sorting process that gets you the better product,” Munidasa says. “One category of a bad crab is if it has a lot of water in its body. When you cook it, the water goes out, the meat shrinks inside, and you end up with hardly any meat in the claws or in the body.”
His Ministry team inspects and selects the crabs and serves only those that pass their standards. Plus, they cook the orders individually and upon order, not in bulk.
The special spices from Sri Lanka add flavors.
The Ministry of Crab, 30th St., corner 5th Ave., Bonifacio Global City.