Shellybelly’s warns you its food isn’t for the faint hearted. This is no joke. Meat from east London’s famous Smithfield Market is bathed in homemade pimento and scallion jerk for two days, before being cooked on a proper jerk drum and served with rice and peas. The Big Bamboo offering takes this jerk, and rips it up into tender strips, nestled with lettuce, tomatoes, mango sauce, mayonnaise, and a top secret sauce all wrapped up in a soft tortilla.

In the sleepy confines of north London’s Hornsey, Mama Gee’s has brought a rare glimpse of Caribbean taste to an area more densely populated with corner shops than food offerings. In addition to Jamaican jerk and curry staples, Mama Gee’s tender oxtail meat swims in a gravy teeming with soft butter beans and mini ‘spinner’ boiled dumplings — a prize winner. Wrap it up in a tortilla for a quick meal on the go.

Though it’s Caribbean Kitchen, the stall proudly proclaims its an “Afro Caribbean Kitchen,” and with this serves a wide range of Afro foods from around the world. In addition to Jamaican dishes like curry goat and ackee and saltfish, homage to Afro food of the American Deep South produces mouth watering options like the newly honed grilled lobster, that can be plated with jerk chicken in a incredible surf and turf option before being saddled with rice, plantain and mac n cheese. Those with time should find a place to sit down and get up close and personal with the dangerously sweet waffles and maple syrup glazed fried chicken.

As brick and mortar Caribbean food spots are relatively hard to find around anywhere encroaching on central London, Legacy Caribbean Food Truck formerly — and still, by many— referred to as Shades has helped to fill the gap for lunchtime workers seeking belly filling island comforts. Flying the Jamaican flag high, the island’s favourites are on offer in the handy lunchtime meal deals, curry goat, jerk, and brown rice chicken.

Sugar cane holds a special place in the heart of those who grew up in the Caribbean or within diaspora families. Chomping and hoovering up all the drips of the tough root until dry, hoping to squeeze just a bit more juice out of it. Never fear: Cane Press literally do all the hard graft, to bottle up the magic juice for easy consumption, infused with an array of fruit and veg from ginger and lime to kale, cucumber and celery, or just straight up. Check social media for locations, but can be found daily at Mama’s Jerk in Canary Wharf.

Caribbean cuisine in the U.K. has long been dominated by the people and culture of Jamaica, with jerk chicken at the forefront. Enter Bokit’la, the U.K.’s first French-Caribbean street food stall, waving the flag high for Guadeloupe. The joy is in the simplicity of the freshly fried dough pocket snack: a choice of size is made first, before the option of filling from chicken, saltfish or aubergine. After this, the addition of a range of spices, plus myriad extras such as avocado, vegetables, and more, all sumptuously tucked in before hungry eyes.
Thursday: 10a.m. — 3p.m. @ Lyric Square, W6 0NB

Friday: 11a.m. — 3p.m. @ Brixton Station Road, SW9 8PD
12p.m. — 10p.m. @ Elephant and Castle Underground Station

Saturday: 10a.m. — 3p.m. @ Oval Farmers Market, SE11 4PW
Sunday: 10a.m. — 3p.m. @ Alexandra Palace Farmers Market, N8 7FW

At the height of lunchtime, queues snake far outside this shop for the day’s servings. Oven grilled jerk chicken sits alongside sticky bbq chicken, but it’s the freshly made sides that make the real difference to the meals. With all produce sourced direct from the nearby market on Electric Avenue, fried sweet festival dumplings and savoury dumplings are constantly being trayed up, as well as bubbling baked mac n cheese being pulled out the oven.

While some Caribbean food based vendors are keen to illustrate the whole wealth of the culture’s cuisine, others are more focussed on perfecting certain streams. For Jerk Off, it’s obvious which is the priority. The increasingly popular jackfruit gets the slow-heated authentic wood jerk treatment alongside more traditional meats, while the house soup of pumpkin, butternut squash, coconut and scotch bonnet for extra heat warms the belly in hard winter. In true Caribbean style, it is served up with soft, dunkable Hard Do (hard dough) bread.