Spitalfields’ Hot New Trinidadian Restaurant Is Back Open and Buzzing

Trinidadian rum shop and “island food” restaurant Limin’ in Spitalfields has reopened following a temporary refurbishment, and menu shake-up.

Though originally designed as a 10-week pop-up, Limin’ established itself as one of London’s hottest new restaurants in the latter part of last year. It won the right to stay put (on the former site of Portuguese chef Nuno Mendes’ Taberna do Mercado) and will remain in place until at least May. At a launch party at the weekend, according to the restaurant’s own Instagram page, the space was at capacity. “We’ve become to pulse of the market, a place where regulars become family and strangers become friends. Where a community can come together and celebrate life,” the owners wrote.

Just before Christmas owner Sham Mahabir told Eater that “Limin’ has for many become a ‘safe space,’ a ‘happy place’, full of warm Caribbean vibes.” He said he was “humbled by the response from our community who have found a place they can call their own, especially in these times of Brexit and the Windrush scandal.”

It attracted a cult-following among the Trinidadian and wider Caribbean diaspora in London, received celebrity endorsements, and registered at number on Tripadvisor — for what that’s worth, in less than two months, last year.

The menu, which launched this week, has changed. No longer is it separated into the three categories of culinary influence on the island: Indo-, Afro-, and Chinese-Caribbean.

A number of the most popular dishes, however, remain in place. Of those which still feature, it is the ones with South Asian and African culinary influence that take centre stage: fried bara doubles with chick pea curry, cucumber, and pepper sauce; buss-up-shut roti bread with curry chicken, curry goat, or spinach; chicken pelau; curry crab dumplings; and fried bake with salt fish.

Here’s the full menu, which is now split into “tapas”, “classics”, “twists”, sides, and desserts:

A new and revised (rum) cocktail menu has also launched.

The name, an abbreviated form of “liming,” is a Trinidad expression meaning “hanging out” — or, per Spitalfields Market, “about getting together with friends at home, the beach, river, street corner or rum shop.”