Ruwan with Ontaro Premier Doug Ford…with his pretty daughter Ruwini
Chef Ruwan Jayakody is quite frank about his humble beginnings.
“After leaving school I joined the Katubedda campus to study engineering but had to abandon half way mainly due to financial difficulties,” he said during a recent interview with Toronto-based Tamil Entertainment TV.
“After that early setback I joined the reputed Sri Lankan newspaper company Lake House as the correspondent for my native Ruwanwella. I drew cartoons, wrote articles serving as the correspondent for Ruwanwella, my hometown. That was how I began my life,” he said talking about his uphill struggle in the early days of his promising career.
I met Ruwan way back in 2005 in the company of Sri Lankan Reporter editor Srimal Abeyewardene to write an article about his culinary exploits on the world stage. He has been contesting at the Food Olympics being held every four years and other reputed events among the chefs, to showcase their innovative ways of appealing to people’s taste buds discovering hidden magic of world ethnic cuisine.
After graduating from Ceylon Hotel School in the 80s Ruwan had started his career as an apprentice chef at Colombo Oberoi. After that he had worked in the Middle East and Europe honing his skills.
Ruwan, fondly known in Toronto as ‘Cake Ruwan’, was gaining international recognition for his expertise and passion to lend his time and talent to promote culinary art at a time when TV food channels were making their presence felt on international stage, discovering new ways to bring global cuisine to living rooms, turning little known chefs into celebrities overnight.
Ruwan has been a regular feature in the Canadian Food Olympics since he landed in the country 25 years ago. In 1997 he was in the Canadian team which emerged as the second best at the World Master Chefs’ Competition held in Dallas, Texas.
When I met him in 2005 Ruwan had been making the Canadian National Day cake for the Queen’s Park (Ontario Parliament) for six years, each one enough to feed 3500 people and also baked the city cake for three years. His culinary wonders earned him a chapter in the World Celebrity Chefs published in the UK, a thick volume of Who’s Who in the international culinary scene. Some of the global luminaries who have tasted Ruwan’s creations include Ophra Winfrey and the Obamas, among others. The chef is providing his cakes and desserts to 25 airlines operating from Toronto’s busy Lester Pearson Airport.
Despite his busy schedule as he is branching off to different business areas devoting time to learn and lend his expertise to emerging global culinary trends.
This March he was a Canadian team member which won the first place in the fourth round of the world Bread Festival held in the island of Djerba in Tunisia. He was a judge in the Canadian national team, among other nationals. He also participant at the Culinary World Cup Luxembourg which attracted 45,000 visitors and more than 750 chefs from all over the world last November. The Luxembourg event was categorized as a ‘salon culinaire’, specializing in creating aesthetically-pleasing art from food.
Ruwan launched his own company, Ruwan Cake Art, in 1995 laying the foundation for his meteoric rise and today he has become the most successful businessman of Sinhala origin in Toronto, owning the biggest banquet hall in the city, named Grand Cinnamon.
“I have a fascination with the name cinnamon,” Ruwan said during the interview. “My language is food, and our taste buds have a perennial affinity with cinnamon. It is an important ingredient in our food for its taste and fragrance, and Sri Lanka was known for its cinnamon from t\he ancient days. I have branded all my business ventures under cinnamon label. Originally Indian-owned, I bought the banquet hall two years ago deciding to give it a unique international identity.”
The first company to take his favourite brand name was Cinnamon Fence, the apartment complex he owns in Colombo catering to tourists visiting the island. “I named it Cinnamon Fence because it is on the border between the posh residential suburb of Cinnamon Gardens and Thimbirigasyaya.”
His latest venture is Cinnamon Entertainment which specializes in organizing musical presentations and dances. The dinner dance held at his banquet hall recently where Nalin Perera and his Marians band and internationally-known Sri Lankan singer Chitral Sompala appeared on stage, was the first event under this brand. It was the biggest dinner dance held in North America, with the participation of more than 1200 revellers. According to Nalin, he has not so far performed before such a massive audience in Sri Lanka or abroad.
Cinnamon Entertainment’s next big event will feature Sohan & the X-periments, with versatile songstress Trishelle and the Singing Chef from Australia Don Sherman. This will be held on October 5 on Grand Cinnamon stage. There are plans to hold an outdoor musical event titled ‘Drive Slow N Smell Cinnamon’ featuring artistes flown in from Sri Lanka.
Ruwan also owns Cinnamon Ru Commercial Plaza adjacent to the main banquet hall which can accommodate mini functions in its Club Cinnamon Banquet Hall.
Asked the reason behind his success he replied confidently, ‘it is mainly my focus and passion do to anything right’.
“To succeed in business you have to face challenges and take risks,” he said. Taking risks is not everyone’s cup of tea, but in case of Ruwan his unflinching nerve to try new ventures despite hidden dangers has paid rich dividends.
He told the interviewer that he has two children, son Ruwin and daughter Ruwini. Ruwini is still in the final year at University of Toronto studying for a Neuroscience Degree while Ruwin follows in his father’s footsteps managing the banquet hall on his way to become the heir apparent.
A millennial who swapped a career in medicine to learn the family business, has a good head above his shoulders. He is seen shadowing his dad closely watching his interactions with the clients and the staff, sometimes taking notes, learning the art of managing his dad’s ever-growing mini business empire.
The woman behind the Ruwan’s success is his wife Wisakha from his struggling early days. A good-hearted, passionate host like her husband, she makes sure to look after the visitors to her house well, not forgetting to serve everyone to a tasty home-cooked meal.
Cinnamon Banquet Hall offers more than 40 multi-ethnic cuisine catered by an army of cooks manning the kitchen. Cinnamon Grand hosts functions varying from weddings, fashion shows, dinner dances, musical programmes, ethnic dance shows, exhibitions and many other social and family functions.
A passionate believer in ethnic harmony, Ruwan sponsors many multi- cultural events and he will be one of the sponsors of Mr. Tamil Canada pageant to be held on June 1 at Markham Hilton.
Ruwan who likes to enjoy life as best as he can, displays bit of flamboyant theatrics when it comes to his showmanship skills. He threw his banquet hall doors open for his birthday welcoming everyone to mark the occasion two years ago.
Current Premier of Ontario Doug Ford was his de-facto chief guest who was in the midst of his election campaign. He made good use of the platform offered by Ruwan to campaign, posing for selfies of his potential voters, and explaining to them his policies and why they should elect him. Ford joined the chorus to sing the birthday song on stage while Ruwan, dressed in chef’s traditional garb of the tall hat and white apparel, hoisted himself up to the sky on a folk-lift to lower the massive birthday cake! After that there was a video of him demonstrating mechanized cake-making in his factory.
Ruwan is planning to branch off to a completely different area. His next project will be offering Canadian educational opportunities for Sri Lankan students along with visa facilities in cooperation with several well-known institutions.
Speaking to newstrails.com, Ruwan said several countries including Canada have imposed rigid visa restrictions on Sri Lankans willing to study abroad due to wide-spread irregularities and scams. – Somasiri Munasinghe
