Jamaican-style restaurant from Collin Brown to open in March
A Jamaican-style restaurant is set to open in London's Covent Garden next month.
Expected to open in mid-March on a site that was previously occupied by baked potato company Spud â' the Jamaica Patty Co. has been developed by Jamaican-born entrepreneur Theresa Roberts, and Jamaican-born, three-time Caribbean Chef of the Year Collin Brown.
It will serve traditional Jamaican main dishes and cakes, including the main attraction: freshly-baked "patties", filled with a selection of spicy fillings, including jerk chicken, prawn, curried goat and saltfish.
There will also be Jamaican porridge and coffee, a range of Caribbean-inspired soup recipes, including spicy pumpkin, chicken and dumpling, and gungo pea; plus a selection of sweet things such as Tortuga rum cake, banana bread, plantain crisps and Jamaican Devon House Ice Cream.
Among the varied drinks menu will be the Caribbean soursop water, which comes from the soursop or graviola plant. It is said to taste like a combination of pineapple and strawberry, and reported to improve nail, skin and hair health (while some even claim it can help ward off cancer).
Brown started his career in Jamaica, before coming to London in 1998. He became head chef of the One Three Nine restaurant in Soho, and was then director and executive chef at the Glistening Waters restaurant in Brentford, before opening his own fine-dining restaurant The Lane in the Brick Lane area.
His most recent project, the self-titled Chef Collin Brown Ltd, in London's Docklands, earned him an AA-Rosette, making him the first Caribbean chef to be awarded the accolade. He also has a restaurant in Jamaica, and regularly cooks for celebrities and names such as the Rockefeller family.