The best eating in Unawatuna tends to be at the handful of small restaurants along the beach road with handwritten menus and plastic chairs facing the bay. The formula is simple: choose your fish from the display (cuttlefish, crab, barracuda, and various reef fish depending on the morning's catch), agree on a price, and wait while it is grilled or curried to order. Rice and coconut sambol come on the side. A full meal for two rarely costs more than 2,000 rupees.
Chooti's Beach Restaurant and The Bedspace Kitchen are among the places that come recommended by repeat visitors, but the lineup changes each season. The safe move is to walk the strip at lunchtime, see what's freshest, and sit wherever looks busy with locals. Avoid anywhere with a laminated tourist menu and printed prices: the fresh-catch places usually write their specials on a chalkboard.