It’s a sensory experience to travel to a part of London still upsettingly devoid of the Tube — call it the “ginger line” all you like, the Overground doesn’t count — and be met with the noise, smoke and vibrations of Selhurst Park. SE25 is the home of Crystal Palace football club, Premier League minnows voraciously punching above their weight, but also Original Tasty Jerk, where some of the most comforting food in London is acquired. Together, on match days, when the stadium and its locale are a festival of red and blue, these combine to become one powerful force. The flowing sound of song binds itself to flavours of barbecued meat and hot pepper sauce.
Tasty Jerk is one of those places that has, for the most part, sailed by largely unnoticed. It has always been known to Palace fans and south Londoners, more recently a band of hard-working food writers, but it sits in a part of London less charted than most and rarely visited by the trudging masses. It is a local institution, not a pin on a sightseer’s map. This despite the fact some seem to treat it like a box to be ticked. Visitors on internet forums call it “off the beaten track”, even going so far as to herald the place “run-down”. To them we say: welcome to deep south London, the former stomping ground of Stormzy, Lola Young and Kate Moss. And where the food and football are nourishing.
