Lentil As Anything

Lentil As Anything was created from a dream Shanaka Fernando had for his local community in St. Kilda around twenty years ago.

In the year 2000, Shanaka set up the first Lentil As Anything with the support of the community in St. Kilda. A wild idea at the time and one of Australia’s first modern social enterprises, it was a restaurant that provided food to anyone who dropped in. In order to keep the project viable, Lentil As Anything adopted a contribution model where patrons were encouraged to donate what they could either through a gift of labour, skills or simply to “pay as you feel”, thus creating an effective tool for promoting social cohesion and inclusion.