Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Jamaica’s First Kosher Restaurant Serves Spicy Jerk Cuisine

(JTA) — Jamaica has its first kosher restaurant.

Kosher Hot Spot, run by Chabad of Jamaica, will serve the island nation’s famous jerk cooking in which meat is dry-rubbed or wet marinated with a hot spice mixture called Jamaican jerk spice.

The eatery, which opened last week, is located on Montego Bay’s “hip strip,” which is home to dozens of restaurants and shops. In addition to traditional Jamaican food, the restaurant will serve Israeli specials such as falafel.

The restaurant also sells Judaica and Jewish Jamaican souvenirs.

“We will feed your body and soul,” Rabbi Yaakov Raskin, co-director of Chabad of Jamaica, said in a statement.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.