11/10/2022
The sale of Caribbean food in the UK dates back to the 1920's, with notable restaurants being in London and Cardiff. Seen as a place of meet for the small Caribbean community in the UK, it helped them breed familiarity within the small island as many of them missed their homes back in the West Indies.
📸 #1: Mangrove Restaurant, Notting Hill, Founded in 1968
A feeling most encapsulated, in 1979 poem, 'It Dread Inna Inglan' by Linton Kwesi Johnson. Many sales of Caribbean cuisine would come from residential spaces to avoid outside tensions. It also would create quite a community feel for those attending, reminding them of back home in the islands.
📸 #2: Linton Kwesi Johnson (LKJ), Poet and Activist
Notably, after clubbing and nights out, there was a demand for Afro-Caribbean cuisine; with sellers of the food either selling them from their car boots or striking deals with clubs to cook on the premises.
📸 #3: man clubbing in the 80’s Britain [photo credits to Gavin Watson]
Between 1969 and 1970, the Mangrove Restaurant was raided by police around 12 times. By summer 1970, 150 activists marched through Notting Hill, demanding the ‘end of the persecution of Mangrove Restaurant’.
📸 #4: Mangrove Restaurant during the march in 1970
Unfortunately, the race riots of the 1980's saw further Afro-Caribbean spaces being targeted, forcing the closure of many of the restaurants, though still popular within their own communities. However, undeterred, by the 1990's Caribbean restaurants were on the rise again.
