We could have opened in London, where there is a jerk shop on every corner. We chose Sevenoaks on purpose. There is a gap here for good Caribbean food, cooked properly and served with a real welcome, and we are here to fill it. The catering operation proved the appetite was there. People come back when the food is right. They kept coming back.
The kitchen is held to a high bar. Germaine is the head chef, and every plate leaves the kitchen cooked fresh and seasoned properly. Jerk began as a way to preserve meat before refrigeration, born out of hard times in the mountains of Jamaica. That history is part of what makes it taste the way it does. We respect that, and you taste the difference.
The catering track record is solid. We have fed corporate events for Barclays and Lloyds during Black History Month, cooked for local schools, weddings, birthdays, and social gatherings, and run local market days where the queue ran past the truck. Every one of those events confirmed the same thing: people want this food, and they want it done properly.
The sweet side is what tends to surprise people. Welsh Scoop ice cream in four flavours, mango, coconut, rum and raisin, and soursop, served by the scoop at £3.70, on crepes, and on waffles. A Jamaican banana cake alongside. Germaine is also barista trained, so there is a proper coffee counter too. A Caribbean restaurant with an ice cream and coffee offer is not something you come across every day. That is the point.
876 is the dialling code for Jamaica. It is in the name because it is in everything here: the seasoning, the music, and the welcome you get when you walk through the door. As Germaine says, it is not just food, it is da truth.
Come hungry. Bring a friend.Jerk began with the Maroons. Formerly enslaved Africans who escaped into the Jamaican mountains, they learned to season meat with local spices and cook it slowly over pimento wood. The method came from necessity and careful observation.
That same patience and seasoning are used today. The meat is cooked fresh in Sevenoaks with the original fire and spice. The fire and the wood remain the same because nothing improves on what first succeeded.
