In the kitchen and behind the stove with Cynthia Shanmugalingam at Rambutan, a Sri Lankan restaurant in Borough where open kitchens and fruit take centre stage. An ode to Cynthia's Tamil Aunties and village kitchens where dishes are cooked in clay stoves over fire and spices are toasted and ground by hand.

What’s the significance of the Rambutan fruit?

Rambutans are one of my favourite fruits, and I first had one on a holiday in Sri Lanka when I was 8 or 9. We were staying in the hill country with my favourite uncle and his family, climbing guava trees and jumping in waterfalls and it all blew my mind.

Rambutan is a loan-word from Java, and a fruit not indigenous to the island, making it a kind of metaphor for the food of Sri Lanka.

So much that is incredible is indigenous to Sri Lanka, so many spices, so many amazing vegetables and fish varieties. But much of what came to the island came from elsewhere, some via European colonisers, some via wars, some via Arab or silk route traders. And we made it all ours.

Tell us a bit more about having an open kitchen, do you feel this is fundamental to Rambutan?

The open kitchen is fundamental; I can't see us ever doing a restaurant without it. So much of the time, chefs cooking South Asian food are in basements and tucked away, and the skills: slapping rotis, making dosas, grills, cooking on fire - they deserve to be centre stage!

Could you tell us a bit more about the fried Fig Bonda with Sesame Podi and the inspiration behind the dish?

Bonda are Tamil fried snacks, usually potato or onion or a whole chilli with gram flour. I had a fig tempura in a Japanese restaurant in LA and thought figs would make a delicious Bonda, we use a mix of rice flour, gram flour, and sparkling water to get it really crisp and light.

Podis are the sort of world of delicious spiced powders from Tamil cuisine, little powerhouses of spices and ground lentils that you dip things in or sprinkle over rice or Idlis for a kind of amped up flavour. The most famous is gunpowder Podi, but we use a traditional Black Sesame Podi for the figs.

How would you describe the cooking at Rambutan to someone who has never been to the restaurant?

Rambutan is an ode to my Tamil aunties and mum and grandmother who all ended up dispersed all over Sri Lanka and the world. Just like the traditional village kitchens, they left behind, we cook over fire, we toast and freshly grind our own spices, we cook in clay stoves, we use the very best quality of ingredients we can. But just like all the immigrant mums I know, we adapt everything to use ingredients from England, and we work hard to make it all as delicious and playful and affordable as we can.