Last Updated on October 24, 2026
Caribbean-style ‘Island Roast’ with jerk gravy livens up Sunday roast
4.5 out of 5.0 starsGuanabana’s Island Roast draws quite the crowd! As we attempted to roll home in our jerk-gravy-induced daze, there was a hungry queue forming on the pavement.
The Island Roast is served both Saturdays and Sundays; we had arrived straight after opening on Sunday lunchtime. I feel hard-wired from childhood to eat roast dinners on Sundays, even if restaurants serve them on other days of the week.
On a main street between Kentish Town and Camden, the front dining space of Guanabana is darker and intimate, whereas the rear section is more spacious, with a glass roof letting light flood in. During our visit, this was a welcome autumnal blue sky, enhancing the tropical backdrop of colourful artworks and lush houseplants.
Guanabana serves a mix of Latin American and Caribbean dishes, with bold flavours, generous portions and friendly, casual dining atmosphere. They are well known for their Island roast on Sundays, which offers oak-smoked meat (or fish or portobello mushroom) with signature jerk marinade and trimmings of roast plantain, cabbage and baby carrots. Established in 2007, Guanabana’s meat is halal-certified, and to get an authentic Jamaican flavour into their jerk chicken, they season it by hand and smoke it with oak wood.
The venue is not licensed, but you can BYOB with corkage rates charged. A range of fresh juices is served, such as Kingston Kick (carrot and ginger) and Green Zinger (apple, ginger, lemon). Instead, we opted for one of their mojito-style mocktails: one lychee, one strawberry.
Served with lime and mint, the strawberry version was sweet, fresh fruit flavour with vibrant colour. My husband had ordered the strawberry one, but in fact I liked it so much that I swiped it from him. He was happier with the less-sweet lychee version.
We had a choice of half jerk chicken or a boneless thigh meat version. The smoked beef is offered as pink or well done. I went for pink. Our roasts soon arrived and were attractively presented with baby carrots and herb garnish.
The Island Roast jerk gravy is mildly spicy, deep caramel in colour and glossy, with not a lump in sight. I liked how the meat was layered upon the trimmings so these were gradually discovered as you tucked in.
We’d once attended a wedding with jerk chicken served at the reception. It had been especially spicy that day, and we’d joked on our way to Guanabana that we were probably now nearly the age of those older relatives who’d had steam coming out of their ears. The jerk chicken here was noticeably hotter than the smoked beef, and both plates overall had a gentle kick to them – but not spicy so you’d be loosening your collar and gulping down water.
My favourite trimming was the roast plantain. I might happily start using plantain at home since this season’s parsnips seem skinnier than ever. Sweet and caramelised, they felt like a happy halfway house between parsnip and banana.
My only small gripe was that the Yorkshire pudding was heavier than I like, but that’s better than it collapsing. The potatoes had crispy edges, and there was plenty of jerk gravy to coat every forkful.
We did the right thing skipping starters; our portions were generous. I was glad, though, that we’d ordered a side vegetable dish of creamed spinach, callaloo and okra. Describing it later to my mother as ‘mashed Kermit’, it wasn’t the most visually pleasing dish, but oh… so tasty! It’s been a while since I last felt like tugging a server’s arm to ask for a recipe to make something at home. It was so delicious I felt it must be loaded with butter, but no, upon enquiry I learned it was coconut – and vegan to boot.
Callaloo, if you’ve not come across it before, is a leafy green vegetable, originating in West Africa but brought to the Caribbean during the transatlantic slave trade. You can buy it in cans. Blended here with spinach, okra and coconut cream, we went from worrying we’d not really needed to order it, to compulsively spooning it onto our plates until it was gone.
Desserts, apart from the lychee sorbet, are all homemade in the bakery next door. I had a bowl of banana pudding piled high with whipped cream. ‘Banana pudding’ might mean several things so I didn’t know what to expect, but it was chilled layers of fresh banana and soft biscuit in a creamy sauce. A bit like trifle without the jelly, indulgent but not too stodgy.
My husband was especially pleased with his hot mango crumble with a scoop of ice cream. There’s an option to have it with custard, which I’ve seen in an Instagram reel elsewhere; it arrives in a jug to pour yourself.
If you have space, Guanabana’s starter dishes included crispy calamari and corn ribs in jerk butter. The table next to us also had an entire macaroni cheese next to their roasts. I saw someone else being given a take-away container for leftovers – understandable.
Guanabana had filled up quickly during the course of our visit; tables were mainly twenty and thirty-somethings and almost entirely there for the Sunday roast. As the queue testifies, plenty of people are already converted to the Guanabana Island Roast experience.
For me a test of a Sunday roast is always ‘would I come back here instead of my well-tested carvery?’ Often the answer is ‘not really’ but on the basis of today, I would definitely want to eat Sunday lunch here again – even if it breaks the Sunday lunch template instilled by my late-grandmother.
Firmly satisfied, neither of us managed to eat more that evening than a bit of Weetabix. I am tempted to go back for other non-Sunday roast dishes in the week, notably lamb shank curry and an oxtail butter bean stew each served with plantain, rice and peas.
If one of you wants Sunday lunch and the other is craving something different, Guanabana is a great option. Given how busy it was, booking ahead is advised.
Guanabana
85 Kentish Town Road
London
NW1 8NY
Looking for another north London roast? Try The Lighterman at Kings Cross.
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