By Marco Shalma

If you want to understand Jamaican New York, go to Flatbush before lunchtime. The air shifts. Smoke curls out of half-open doors. Someone’s blasting dancehall loud enough to shake the block. Taxi drivers line up outside bakeries. Students duck in for patties. Nurses grab to-go plates on their way to work. Jamaican food didn’t slide into New York quietly. It arrived with confidence, rhythm, and a flavor that made the city stop pretending it knew everything.

Jerk chicken is the flag. A technique born from the Maroons. Descendants of Africans who escaped slavery in Jamaica’s mountains, blending indigenous Taino influence with African spice knowledge. Scotch bonnet. Allspice. Thyme. Slow smoke. Heat you feel in your chest. When Jamaican immigrants began arriving in large waves in the 60s and 70s, many settling in Crown Heights, Flatbush, and parts of the Bronx, jerk chicken became the dish that pulled whole neighborhoods together. On sidewalks. In backyards. From drums cut open and converted into smokers. It’s not “barbecue.” It’s a declaration.

Oxtail carries the depth. Once considered a scrap cut, Jamaicans transformed it into a slow-braised, rich, silky dish that feels like a reward for surviving the week. In New York, oxtail became the comfort plate for families working two jobs, kids moving between school and relatives, and anyone who needed the kind of warmth only patience can produce. Every cook has a version. Every version has an argument behind it. Oxtail is where the city learns to slow down and appreciate technique.

Beef patties are the everyday power move. A Jamaican evolution of British savory pies fused with Indian spice influence, perfected in Kingston bake shops and brought to New York in the pockets of migration. In the city, patties hit harder: school lunchrooms, corner stores, dance studios, office microwaves, anywhere someone needed handheld fuel. Golden crust, seasoned beef, that signature snap when you break it open. Patties became one of New York’s unofficial currencies. Cheap, filling, everywhere, and always reliable.

Jamaican New Yorkers built far more than restaurants. They built businesses, churches, music shops, pan yards, community centers, and political movements. They brought dancehall, reggae, patois, and a cultural swagger that influenced fashion, language, and sound across the boroughs. Jamaican bakeries became meeting points. Barbershops became newsrooms. Food became an anchor for people figuring out how to build a life in a city that doesn’t always give second chances.

To taste the lineage today, go to The Islands on Washington Avenue for jerk that hits with real authority. Visit Peppa’s Jerk Chicken in Flatbush for oxtail and jerk that draw lines every night. And don’t leave without grabbing patties from Golden Krust, the Bronx-born chain founded by the Hawthorne family that grew into a national empire while staying true to its Jamaican core.

Now you know: Jamaican New York didn’t ask for space. It claimed it, and fed the city until the city understood the assignment.

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