London doesn’t lack for brave new restaurant concepts. However, it’s a Hobbesian world, sufficiently short, nasty and brutish that about half of all restaurant openings in the city shut within a year. You can blame Brexit, inflation, changing fashions, or all/none of the above, but the truth is stark. If your reviewer were a betting person, then he would put Jam Delish in the unlucky category.
First, what a silly name. When I saw it appear on an email in my inbox, with the postcode N1 following straight after, my initial impression was of a pretentious tea room likely to be kitted out in Cath Kidson patterns serving artisanal scones and toppings. Closer inspection proved this notion to be wrong: ‘Jam’ is short for Jamaican and ‘delish’ is presumably a nod to local patois, for tasty. Many adjectives could be applied to the two-hour visit your reviewer and his dining comrade spent there on a recent weeknight evening, but delicious would not be one of them.
The concept behind the restaurant is both a laudable and an on-trend one. Take Jamaican (or Caribbean) food and veganise it. Sure, there’s a gap in the market for such a concept, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that it needs to be filled. Maybe Islingtonians might beg to differ, since the venue was packed, even at 6.30pm when we arrived. It can’t be the décor they’re coming for, which is mostly muted blue with functional wooden tables and a token palm tree in the centre. Being busy was also perhaps Jam’s downfall. Our server – we overheard it was her first day – was rushed off her feet, but the kitchen also seemed singularly unprepared. We had an unpleasantly long wait to endure between our starter and main. Worse, we were informed that the kitchen had ‘run out’ of avocado – almost a cardinal error for a vegan restaurant, particularly so early in the evening and with a major supermarket almost opposite.
The menu itself takes Caribbean classics and veganises them. However, at no stage are diners informed what comprises the meat substitute, neither on the menu nor the restaurant’s website. While some dishes – our ‘fish’ tacos and jerk ‘chicken’ skewers being prime examples – could plausibly have passed for the real thing, others – the ‘chicken’ wings and ‘goat’ curry – fell well wide of the mark. The latter two seemed like crude attempts at imitation, the first overwhelmed by spice while the second unfortunately failed in the opposite direction. It might have been a nice touch had Jam included a few more genuine vegetable dishes rather than simply trying to re-create meat. At least diners can come away feeling they weren’t (that badly) ripped off, with a two-course meal, beers and service coming in at around £50/ head. Whether they will return is, of course, a different matter.