Sri Lankan Flair Makes This Distillery Restaurant Your Next Must-Try Dining Destination

Classy cocktails, vinyl DJ nights and a “Lankan-leaning” cuisine you’ve never tried before: Dutch Rules Distilling Co has raised the bar in Mitcham. Founded in 2022, the distillery bar on Whitehorse Road opened in 2024 and now a swanky refurb and an award-winning chef are set to transform it into a destination dining spot, opening Wednesday 15 April.

Young Chef of the Year and Dutch Rules’ head chef Viveik Vinoharan elegantly blends French, Italian and Japanese technique with his Sri Lankan background.

“The food will be quite surprising,” he says. “Even though it sounds familiar, there’s a lot going on in the background. Building flavours through the use of ferments and spices and time.”

The ex-Lilac Wine chef keeps it fun, approachable (catering to vegan and gluten free diets) and wallet-friendly. The most expensive dish is $34, the set menu is $70pp and there's a changing snack set menu ranging between $30 and $40.

Dishes are easily paired with Dutch Rules cocktails (plus wine and local Two Rupees beers). Sip their savoury martini with notes of sansho, olive brine and umami bitters as you crunch on deep-fried fried potato snacks with turmeric, black pepper and grated manchego. Or a Ceylon Bee gimlet alongside bouncy sourdough focaccia with red rice, served with a hot honey-ish swipe of jaggery, chilli, merlot vinegar and garlic oil.

Vinoharan weaves gin throughout the menu, from fresh oysters with Dutch Rules spirit mignonette, to sweet granita with a lilt of Thai gin. The charcuterie board isn’t your everyday salami: it’s custom-made by Kyle Nicol of Big Time Small Goods (also ex-Lilac) utilising Dutch Rules products like bresaola cured with coffee liqueur. A bright trout crudo with green tomato pil-pil uses tomatoes from O.MY’s farm dressed with pomelo byproduct from gin-making and shiso, served on lentil vadai, a crispy spiced Sri Lankan street snack.

The team will regularly gather a glut of produce from O.MY for pickling, preserving and serving fresh. 

“I want to work very closely with farms and people I love and trust,” Vinoharan says. “I feel like being produce-driven gives us flexibility and then infusing those Lankan flavours is simple.”

Aside from seasonal shifts, some signatures stay. Lamb biryani sausage, for one: spiced lamb biryani stuffed inside sausage casing, smoked over cherrywood and served with Dreaming Goat Dairy yogurt. There’ll always be pasta, such as house-made rigatoni with ragu-like pork ‘curry’ made from pork skin, wallaby mince, lemongrass, green chilli, pandan, tomato and tamarind. Joining  Melbourne’s swiss roll era is Vinoharan’s dark chocolate iteration filled with plum jam and mascarpone with coconut butterscotch and fenugreek ice cream. 

“Sri Lankans love a swiss roll, I love a swiss roll, why not?" he says. 

Imagery: Dutch Rules | Supplied