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Mint, pepper, chilli: it hits you as soon as you walk through the door of Hopper Joint. “It smells so good in here,” my dining companion swooned as we were led to our table at the window of the corner building on one of Prahran’s cutest intersections.

The room, aside from its olfactory attributes, is a delight, all chocolatey woods and rattan-backed chairs and colourful artwork that doubles as instruction on how to handle and eat the restaurant’s namesake dish.

The ceiling has been stripped back to its underthings, exposing metal struts and rough wooden slats, giving a contrasting industrial element to the otherwise swish design.

The branding of the place is consistent and clever, the menus fronted by elephant drawings in bright pastels, the whimsy of the cocktail list echoed in the design of the page.

Perhaps winter has you down? I suggest a Clarified Sapphire Margarita ($26.90), made with a coconut milk wash, the “sapphire” in this case referring to its blue hue – provided by blue Curacao. It tastes like a beach, and only a tiny bit in the suntan lotion way.

Hopper Joint opened in March on Greville Street, thanks to Brahman Perera and Jason Jones, who are also behind nearby French restaurant Entrecote.

It’s a love letter to Perera’s heritage, and while Melbourne is home to plenty of Sri Lankan restaurants – many of them buffets – this place clearly aims to introduce the cuisine to a new audience, hence the instructional artwork.

The menu states that each diner is required to partake in the traditional hopper set option ($45.90), which comes with two curries, two sambols (condiments), one egg hopper and unlimited plain hoppers.

The bowl-shaped, pancake-like hoppers are sweeter here than I’ve had elsewhere – in fact, when eaten alone, the plain hopper slightly resembled a thin waffle cone in flavour, complete with shiny crisped exterior that had a glaze partially thanks to its sugar content.

You rip your hopper, dip it in your curries of choice, pile on some coconut or caramelised onion sambol, and ring the bell on your table if you require more hoppers.

Curries are ranked by spice level (one to three chilli peppers), but even the spiciest listed, the prawn curry, wasn’t so aggressive that it required the cooling drinks the menu offers if you’ve “overdone” it.

There’s a blackened pineapple curry (all curries are $12.90 if you want an additional serving beyond the two the hopper set provides) that provides a lovely foil to the dry pork curry, but my favourite was the okra curry, a mild and warming concoction that burst with fresh spices.

Some of the most pleasurable bites of food here come from the menu’s Short Eats section, which showcases Sri Lankan snacks and a few more fusioned offerings, like beef tartare with fried idli, a rice flour bread ($22.90); or a take on kiri pani, a Sri Lankan dessert, here made savoury using Jerusalem artichoke, buffalo curd and fried fermented chilli ($20.90).

Perhaps the best thing I ate at Hopper Joint was the hot, buttered cuttlefish dosai ($16.90), the small, slightly thick crepe smeared with mint chutney and holding tender fried spiced cuttlefish. It’s the perfect snack.

Hopper Joint clearly aims to introduce Sri Lankan cuisine to a new audience, hence the instructional artwork.

For dessert, I was intrigued by the mango fluff ($16.90), a dish based on a pudding made by Perera’s grandmother. The bright orange quivering mass hides all kinds of goodies under its frothy exterior, including fresh persimmon and coconut jelly.

But the mint-green globs of pandan – a fragrant tropical plant which has a flavour I usually adore – were in this instance strangely acrid, leaving a bitter taste that couldn’t even be mitigated by the maraschino cherry topper. Next time, I’ll play it safe and go for the ice-cream sundae ($15.90).

It’s one of the marks of a great city when you can get various cuisines at various price points in various settings, and that’s probably the most exciting thing about Hopper Joint.

It’s a lovely interpretation of Sri Lankan cooking and culture that goes well beyond the home-style buffet.