Clubby vibes: the palm frond-filled dining room
(Picture: Adrian Lourie)If you are acquainted with big, clubby, Caribbean-influenced restaurants, then on first glance at least the scene at Islington’s Jam Delish will be comfortingly familiar. Cranked R&B slow jams ring out across a vast, darkened space of azure blue light and fake palm fronds; tempting plumes of fried plantain scent the air; servers bearing flaming rum cocktails in novelty tiki bar mugs make their careful way to guffawing, dressed-to-the-nines hordes. And once you get to ordering, you may even find that the menu is mysteriously missing two or three of the things you’d most fancied — a reliable, absurdist quirk of jerk spots and roti shops that, in its own way, is as redolent of island dining as the fragrant burn of scotch bonnet.
Still, look a little closer, and you’ll realise that there is something quietly revolutionary happening here. Not just because every dish — from the soy “beef” patties and the jerk jackfruit birria tacos to the “chicken” wings that are actually a proprietary seitan blend compacted around a sugar cane “bone”— just happens to be entirely plant-based. But also, perhaps more importantly, because many of them are uncommonly delicious; vivid moments of mind-scrambling culinary brilliance that subtly and memorably reframe your perception of what can be achieved with vegetables and meat substitutes.
