PastaMania, Singapore’s largest Italian casual-dining restaurant chain, has opened its first restaurant in Sri Lanka.
The PastaMania Sri Lanka flagship is located in Colombo on R A De Mal Mawatha, Colombo 3 (otherwise known as Duplication Road).
Sri Lanka is the company’s 14th international market and it now has more than 50 outlets, with plans to continue expansion.
Finding the right location and building the restaurant in Colombo took more than a year.
“Our architect and contractors work with the PastaMania international design team from external facade to interior space planning. PastaMania’s brand elements from the Italian grocery shop ‘Alimentari’, open-kitchen ‘Pasta Al Dente’, newspaper stand ‘Edicola’ to details like the mural wall and signage are all carefully designed and fabricated,” said Hilme Azeez, MD (F&B business) of licensee Azeez Brothers.
“The PastaMania Sri Lanka flagship is designed to reflect Italy’s piazza concept, creating the ambience of the day-to-day public life of an Italian ‘City Square’.
“The timing is right as we see a lot potential for casual dining in Sri Lanka. We want to bring a ‘piece of Italy’ and the pleasure of ‘living like an Italian’ to the local and expatriate communities in Sri Lanka.”
Wilson Lim, executive director, international business, with PastaMania’s parent, Commonwealth Capital Group, said the restaurant will use top-grade ingredients from Italy, such as high-protein durum wheat pasta, extra virgin olive oil, coffee and gelato.
PastaMania Sri Lanka, will roll out the ‘Doughworkz’ programme whereby young children will be taught how to make their own ‘pasta and pizza’ and to work within a community. They will also be taught on healthy eating habits and living through our series of ‘PastaMons’ characters and story books aimed at educating the young generation in a ‘Learn-as-You-Play’ mode.