Jam Delish bring their vegan Caribbean food to Islington with an ex-Fifteen chef in charge

Catherine Hanly 16 January 2023

jam delish vegan caribbean restaurant islington

A Hot Dinners exclusive

If you're looking for a positive thing you can say about the lockdowns, they do seem to have given a lot of people the push they needed to open their own business. One such lockdown-generated company is Jam Delish. Co-founder Jordan Johnson was furloughed during lockdown, which is when he took that opportunity to start up his own popup. Jordan, whose mother is Australian and Dad is from Jamaica found it hard to get his favourite traditional Caribbean dishes once he turned vegan. "So I thought, here's a gap in the market."

Jam Delish popped up first as a dark delivery kitchen in Wimbledon alongside appearances at various Kerb markets and festival gigs before going down a storm as one of the Sun and 13 Canton's residencies. When that finished Jordan busied himself cooking for the likes of Common, Black Panther star Letitia Wright and actress Lily James. Now he's taking Jam Delish to the next level, opening a permanent restaurant in Islington.

For the new restaurant, they've brought in head chef Nathan Collymore to head up the kitchen. Collymore, an ex-Jamie Oliver's Fifteen alumnus, is half Bajan and half Jamaican and Jam Delish gives him the first real opportunity to cook his own food. "We're taking Caribbean food to the next level," Jordan told Hot Dinners. "It's not fine dining, but it's also not casual in terms of how the food is plated and the ingredients we're using."

On the launch menu dishes will include:

“Saltfish” tostones with twice-fried green plantain, samphire, scotch bonnet mayonnaise
Buttermilk oyster mushrooms and hard dough bread
Jerk baba ghanoush, plantain hummus, burnt spring onion and chilli butter, grilled roti
Jackfruit and wild mushroom “oxtail” stew, butterbeans, herb cassava dumplings, plantain and Jamaican sweet potato

Desserts sound just as enticing including a chocolate ice-cream sandwich served with Guinness punch sauce and a cheesecake of the week.

The restaurant will have its own bar space to serve up their signature cocktails along with a range of vegan wines, Champagne and beers. And there'll be a terrace space too, which will open once we hit warmer weather.

jam delish vegan caribbean restaurant islington