Levi Roots Follows Jamie Oliver in Closing Westfield Restaurant

Levi Roots, the Reggae Reggae Sauce creator, TV personality, musician, and chef, has closed his Caribbean restaurant at London’s Stratford City Westfield Shopping Centre. Roots, who shot to fame after appearing on entrepreneur-finder TV show, Dragons’ Den, opened his eponymous Caribbean Smokehouse in 2015.

Roots announced the closure on Twitter, according to the Newham Recorder: “SO SORRY! Unfortunately I have to announce my restaurant @levismokehouse is closing today! most dreadful thing is letting down my brilliant team, tried my utter most to avoid this but the party is over and all good things come to and end. So sorry to the customers too.”

Roots’ Smokehouse earned a place on Eater London’s guide to the city’s essential Caribbean restaurants, in which Riaz Phillips wrote:

Beyond his famed jerk chicken and sauce from Dragons’ Den, an assortment of Caribbean nibbles and street food-inspired entrées help to start the festivities at Levi Roots’ Caribbean Smokehouse. A largely Jamaican menu borrows inspiration from neighbouring islands, including Bajan fishcakes and Trinidadian roti.

Roots is the second big-ticket restaurateur to shut down a restaurant at Westfield in recent weeks: Jamie Oliver’s Jamie’s Italian closed after the chef’s restaurant empire went bust.