Plant-based food is often dreary and dry, but I have eaten enough to know genius when I see it

Jam Delish, a glitzy independent down an Islington back street, is a noteworthy new opening for several reasons. First, it is not a vast, laughably expensive, 200-seater, all-day, mock-Mediterranean bistro, which is what just about every investor is backing these days, knowing that a fool and his £28 for substandard, citrus-doused carpaccio are easily parted. Second, it is a Jamaican vegan restaurant that serves fake goat curry, barbecue jerk plantain and saltfish that is certainly not fish. This is unusual.

Sure, Jamaican vegan food should probably be more commonplace, if one thinks about it logically. I’ll show my workings: Jamaica has the world’s largest Rastafarian community; Rastafarians follow an Ital meat-free diet; and Britain is home to many vegans, Jamaicans and Jamaican food-lovers, not to mention Rastafarians. So you’d think that, somewhere along the way, plant-based brown stew “fish” or macaroni “cheese” with fake bacon might have become mainstream. Instead, Jordan Johnson, Jam Delish’s co-founder, found it tough to find decent versions of his favourite Jamaican food, so began during lockdown as a dark delivery kitchen in Wimbledon, before appearances as a market stall and a residency in Soho’s The Sun & 13 Cantons, where the likes of Raheem Sterling, Common, Lily James and the stars of the Black Panther movie franchise reportedly enjoyed the Jam Delish experience.