Barefoot

Barefoot is the place to go in Colombo for colourful, handmade Sri Lankan design. It was founded in 1964 by Barbara Sansoni, and from the late 1960s it began designing and weaving sarongs. The handwoven cloth became its signature, and the company still describes its products as handwoven cloth designed and made in Sri Lanka. The Colombo store, at 704 Galle Road in Colombo 3, combines the shop with a garden courtyard café and the Barefoot Gallery.

The shop is a pleasant place to spend an hour. The range covers sarongs, shawls and beach wraps, bags, toys and household linen such as mats, napkins, cushion covers and tea towels. There is a bookshop, and a warehouse section with cushions, floor mats, hand-painted ceramics, wooden plates, postcards and incense sticks.

The garden café is part of the appeal. It began in the early 1990s as a stand selling lime juice and fish patties and is now a full restaurant and event space, with tea, coffee, sandwiches, juices, wine and beer, and daily specials such as black pork curry. Its Sunday Jazz sessions have run for around 20 years, with a regular quartet of Revel Crake, Dilrukshi Sirimanne, Ray Gomez and Christopher Prins. The garden also hosts book and art launches, fashion shows, weddings and parties, and the café offers catering in local and international cuisine. It keeps the same hours as the shop, and reservations can be made by WhatsApp on +94 77 113 3505.

The shop opens from 10am to 7pm Monday to Saturday and from 10am to 6pm on Sundays and poya days, which makes it one of the few good options for shopping on a Sunday, when Pettah's markets are closed. Allow an hour for the shop, longer if you stay for lunch in the garden.

The store is on Galle Road, the main road along the coast, so it is easy to reach by tuk-tuk from Galle Face or Kollupitiya. If you are heading south later in your trip, Barefoot has a second store at 41 Pedler Street inside Galle Fort, with the same opening hours. The company's head office at 129 Reid Avenue in Colombo 4 receives visitors only by prior appointment, so the Galle Road store is the place to shop.