Telegraph
May 2010



Christopher Ong and Karl Steinberg’s wish had every chance of coming true. In only a few weeks their hotel would be full, but with a manageable number of guests. In the restaurant would be the Asian-inspired food they had always yearned to cook for others. It would be brought out from an airy kitchen to tables in the courtyard of an exquisite former Dutch merchant’s house set within the walls of the fort, an old fortress in Sri Lanka, a place of calm. It was December 2004.

The Galle Fort Hotel opened its doors four weeks before the Boxing Day tsunami threw its force at Galle. Up to 38,000 people were killed in this southern coastal region. The building is set high above the sea and within days Ong and Steinberg had people sleeping on the floor. 'They had nowhere else to go,’ Steinberg says. The hotel’s 11 rooms soon filled with officials sent to assist Sri Lanka. 'We had the US Marine Central Command here for two months plus journalists and aid workers. Immediately after the tsunami we were cooking for survivors, setting up a stall on the road.’ Despite its position, some other parts of the fort had flooded. Steinberg still seems lost for words. 'I never imagined, I had no idea…’ he says, trailing off. It was more than two months before the hotel returned to normality.

The fort had a history of protecting its people. Built by the Portuguese in the 17th century, it had withstood hundreds of conventional invasions over the centuries. In 2004 the low-lying coastal area nearby took the brunt of the wave damage. Displaced boats, uprooted trees, eroded soil and many graves can be seen along the coast. But normal life in the 94-acre area inside the fort, with its houses, mosques, temples, churches, schools and shops, has been restored.

Within its walls live old Sri Lankan families of every religious persuasion and bloodline; fifth-generation jewel traders, lace-makers, ox-cart drivers, octopus fishermen, fruiterers, one who sells king coconuts off the back of his bike and another peddling idiyappam or hoppers – nests made of rice-flour noodles that are eaten for breakfast. The walls protect Mr Ameen, who makes rotti, triangular rice dough buns filled with egg, fish or vegetables, for sale during the festival of Ramadan; Mr Fernando, whose chickpea and chilli 'short eats’ snacks are a town favourite; and Kamalawathi, an elderly lady who sits every day under the same tree in town, selling betel leaf packs.

Their houses were built in many styles by the different foreign occupiers of the fort, and are in various states of order. Some are shabby; others, such as Ong and Steinberg’s 300-year-old house, have been restored to their former magnificence. The decoration is simple, but every room in the hotel is full of antique furniture. Glass-fronted cabinets display the blue-and-white China brought by Sri Lanka’s Dutch settlers, and in the inner courtyard giant old pots are planted with exotic flowering vines. As newcomers, both Ong and Steinberg had to fight for approval from their neighbours. 'The wonderful thing is that there was a lot of protest over the house being turned into a hotel, but after the tsunami hit, the leaders of the town began to approach us, asking for advice on medication access, waste disposal and the water supply,’ Steinberg says. 'There was no more objection, after.’

Both men had given up high-pressure jobs in Australia. Ong was the executive vice-chairman of a Sydney investment bank, Steinberg a successful television producer. They are both in their late thirties. 'But we were both depleted, neither of us was doing what we wanted to do,’ Steinberg says. 'It looked like success, but it was not. One evening we went to a banker’s party. It was lavish, quite shocking. Towards the end of the evening we found ourselves talking to five others, discussing life. Each one of us confessed to being depressed, and we were all seeing the same doctor. Chris and I decided that fundamentally we had to change.’

Ong, who is Malaysian Chinese, grew up on the Isthmus of Kra, a narrow strip on the Malay Peninsula. As a child he played at cooking or sat under the kitchen table listening and learning. Later, as a banker, he would come in late at night, flop down in front of the TV and watch cookery programmes. When he and Steinberg abandoned their careers and hit on the idea of a guesthouse in Sri Lanka, Ong knew that he would take charge of the food and he finally taught himself to cook, choosing a style that spans many Asian cooking cultures, and is very personal. 'My ideology is a fresh approach to Asian food, no fusion as it leads to confusion, but to cook traditional dishes from Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand, with a modern touch. We use fresh ingredients, many of them organic, and cook each day in small batches.’

The menu at the Galle Fort departs from Sri Lanka’s curry culture in a welcome way. A crisp okra salad made with thinly sliced tomatoes and pink onion dressed with lime juice and pepper, is startling in its simplicity. Normally served as a side dish, it is something I could happily feast upon on its own. Enormous prawns, marinated in kecap manis (a sweet, dark soy sauce), plus ginger and garlic, are timed perfectly on the grill, retaining enough juice to make diners’ chins shiny; wok-fried dishes fill the atmosphere with spicy smells; steamed rice arrives on the table piled high in china bowls. Dinner finishes with a variety of sorbets: pastel balls in glass bowls made from local fruits and herbs such as king coconut and lychee, pineapple and mint, mango and lime.

Ingredients are bought from locals, with special trouble taken to buy only from fishermen who deliver the freshest specimens. The hotel staff are also all locals. 'We employ 30 full-time and there must be 100 local people who have some involvement,’ Steinberg says. Stepping out of the fort, exploring the coastal road, there is no shortage of inspiration for cooks. Market stall holders sell packs of jaggery (raw palm or cane sugar), and there are cool terracotta pots filled with buffalo curd, crates of limes, pineapples and aubergines.

Returning that evening for dinner in the quiet inner garden, we try ayam percik, a grilled Malay-spiced chicken, then some Assam prawns and the heavenly, crisp okra salad. This is food that hums with the vitality of Sri Lanka, yet its simplicity mirrors the ease of the new life sought by Ong and Steinberg, safely tucked within the fort’s ever protective walls.

Travel and Leisure Magazine October 2008



“my life here is less caught up in pretensions. I take pleasure in small things, like a brilliant blue kingfisher that comes into my garden each day”

When Karl Steinberg first set eyes on the Dutch-built fort of Galle, it was a crumbling backwater. Built by slaves of the Dutch East India Company in the 1600s and later sacked by the British, the charming seaside town was one of the most cosmopolitan in Asia, serving as a hub for P &O ships sailing between Australasia and Europe. Teaming with a lucrative sapphire and ruby trade, it was said that Galle’s streets were lined with gold. But 50 years after Sri Lankan independence, and long after the country’s main port was relocated to Colombo, Galle was destitute. “It was like Gilligan’s Island,” recalls Steinberg. “It was magical, but so rundown. Tour buses would drive through and not stop. Even Sri Lankans were too scared to venture inside.” The fiftysomething former television producer from Sydney, together with partner Christopher Ong went to Sri Lanka looking for a seachange and semi-retirement. Sri Lanka was priming itself for tourism, a ceasefire had been called after decades of bloody civil war and Galle had received a World Heritage listing for its colonial architecture in 2004.

“It was love at first sight,” says Steinberg. “This country is stunning. We dreamt of having a colonial B &B on the beach when we stumbled across an old gem merchant’s mansion in the fort. We had wonderful lives in Sydney and thought of every reason not to come to Sri Lanka. But, truth be told, our lives had become a bit sad. We’d won the rat race but were still rats.”

So, with no home renovation experience, let alone hotel development, Steinberg and Ong moved from the award-winning Altair apartment building in Kings Cross to an asbestos-and rat-ridden room on the top floor of their hotel-to-be in Galle. Eventually, they returned the mansion to its original Dutch façade, added a second wing with suites and a courtyard pool, and the Galle Fort Hotel was born (28 Church Street; +94 91 2232870; galleforthotel.com; doubles from $160). So historically sensitive was their restoration that they were awarded a distinction from the UNESCO Asia Pacific Heritage Awards.

Even during monsoon season, when tourism dwindles and many hotels close, the Galle Fort Hotel is still a hive of social activity. Every evening diners relax on the frangipani-scented porch and graze on set menus that include local blue-fin tuna sashimi, sang choi bao, Chinese-style prawns with herbs. It’s an impressive selection for Galle, which lacks good restaurants.

The Fort is now in the midst of a cultural and architectural renaissance. A string of old mansions have been restored and transformed into stylish boutique hotels, and the Dutch government has allocated $4 million towards a maritime museum, cleaning and modernising the underground drains (where the Dutch once bred muskrats for oil) and returning private houses to their original facades.

“It’s not paradise living in a poor Asian country; every day will make you and every day will break you,” says Steinberg. Indeed, a few days after they started renovations a public meeting was called demanding all foreigners leave the Fort as they thought they were opening casinos.

Then, four weeks after the Galle Fort Hotel opened in December 2003, the Asian tsunami struck. Luckily for them the Fort, built to withstand cannons with 20-metre-thick ramparts, was saved, in contrast to the new city of Galle, which was razed. “Nothing can prepare you for devastation on that scale. It was complete carnage,” says Steinberg, explaining how people fled into the Fort’s gates carrying the corpses of their family members as rumours of a second wave spread. Now Steinberg and Ong have purchased land at nearby Tangalle where they are planning to build a sustainable beach hotel and turtle conservation centre. “My life here is less caught up in pretensions,” says Steinberg. “I take pleasure in small things, like a brilliant blue kingfisher that comes into my garden each day. I talk with guests, fossick for antiques, lunch at a nearby cafe and watch fishermen dangle their rods in the surf. Then, together with the rest of Galle, I parade the ramparts at sunset. To me, that’s a perfect day.

leisa tyler

Times online travel

Beach bum? Culture vulture? Intrepid adventurer? On Sri Lanka’s south coast, you can be all three

A Special Literary Dinner at Galle Fort Hotel with Colin Thubron
Special degustation menu by Chef Christopher Ong

After earlier books on the Middle East - Damascus, Lebanon, Cyprus - Colin Thubron explored western Russia by car in the last of the Brezhnev years and wrote Among the Russians. Later he travelled in the remotest regions of China for Behind the Wall (winner of the Hawthornden Prize and the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award) and to Central Asia for The Lost Heart of Asia.

He is the author of a number of highly praised novels, including Emperor, A Cruel Madness (winner of the 1985 Silver Pen Award), Falling, Turning Back the Sun and Distance.

How Big Macs ruined the Silk Road

Ian Thomson is impressed by the scholarship and literary craft of Colin Thubron's record of an epic journey through China and Central Asia, Shadow of the Silk Road

Ian Thomson
The Observer, Sunday 17 September 2006