Chef Publis wins Presidential Award

COUNTRIES where Mount Lavinia Hotel held Food Festivals

The Mount Lavinia takes the privilege of introducing Lankan Cuisine to the International Market via Master Chef Dr. T. Publis Silva

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Dr. T. Publis Silva the most well known Chef for Sri Lankan cuisine today, joined the Mount Lavinia Hotel in 1957 and was promoted to the post of cook in 1960 after an extensive training in all the sections. Dr. Publis Silva has been the cook for the late Sir Oliver Goonatileke, the then Ex-Governor General of Ceylon , and the late Sir John Kotalawala, one time Prime Minister of Ceylon.

During the period that the Mount Lavinia Hotel was managed by the Hyatt Corporation of USA , he underwent training under foreign cookery experts and was promoted as Assistant Chef at Mount Lavinia Hyatt in 1972. In 1974 he served in the capacity of executive chef at the Beach Cabana and La Lagousterie Restaurant. He served as the executive Chef at the Kuramathi Tourist Island Resort in the Maldives in the year 1983. He returned to the Mount Lavinia Hotel in 1984. At present he serves as the adviser to the Embadu Resort, Kam Hotel and Summer Island Hotel in the Maldives in addition to being the Director Culinary Affairs and Promotions of Mount Lavinia Hotel.

He organized the cookery competition “Food and Travel Mart” held in Sri Lanka for the first time in 1986. He was also the main technical co-ordinator of “Bak Maha Asiriya” food exhibition 1992 and 1993 held at the BMICH, which had the participation of over 16,500 persons on the two occasions.

Dr. Publis Silva organized several International Food Festivals in Collaboration with cookery experts of Canada , Germany , Singapore , China and India . He has traveled to several countries of the world to host Sri Lankan food festivals in world-renowned hotels in Switzerland , Holland , England , Sweden , France , Germany , Belgium , China , Japan , Singapore , Malaysia , Pakistan , Maldives , India , Dubai and Bahrain .

Chef Publis was invited to Japan to introduce Sri Lankan Cuisine to some of the well-known Japanese Chefs.

Chef Publis presents a number of cookery demonstrations to the public through both electronic and print media. He is invited to train Home Science teachers, students and housewives on Sri Lankan cuisine at many regional seminars. Chef Publis is in the forefront in introducing new Sri Lankan food preparations and works on standardization of Sri Lankan food preparations.

He also researched and presented the traditional meal partaken by the last King of Sri Lanka – Sri Wickrama Rajasinghe and also of Andare the court Jester. He has also introduced a method of preserving Sri Lankan food for a period of over two years without using any preservatives or refrigeration. Chef Publis introduced a dry curry powder containing all curry ingredients required to make a proper Sri Lankan curry, which could be cooked in 20 minutes. Currently this is being promoted in UK , Dubai and Australia .

Chef Publis entered the Guiness Book of records by cooking the largest and longest Kiribath (traditional rice of good omen) with 1020kg of rice and presented it on a 600 ft long table. The accompanying ‘Katta Sambol’ that weighed 240kg was pounded manually by 12 chefs.

Chef Publis has not restricted himself only in cooking; he has also published book in 1992 titled ’Sinhala Bhojana’ and 'Helaratawata Ivumpihum' in 2004 introducing traditional and novel Sri Lankan dishes.