Article by Fernando Davis

With cruise tourism making a comeback following a near 18-month forced hiatus, Ocho Rios, St Ann restauranter, Anna-Kay Tomlinson, says her business establishment “is timely prepared” for a return of the big ships.

Owner of the popular Miss T’s Kitchen, Tomlinson, whose restaurant recently hosted a team from the Ministry of Tourism, including Minister Edmund Bartlett for breakfast, said that while it has been a very challenging period for business operators in general, it has been particularly rough on those who rely heavily on the cruise business.

“Ocho Rios is a cruise shipping town…where a lot of persons rely heavily on the cruise business,” she noted. “While mine is a mixture of locals and tourists, the COVID-19 pandemic and all the hardships have really taken a toll on everyone. I am so happy to see that the ships are finally coming back.”

No stranger to popularity and international exposure, Miss T’s Kitchen was nominated last year as one of the best Caribbean Restaurants by USA Today and has also been featured in top US television reality shows: The Bachelor and Real Housewives of Atlanta.

“This kind of exposure gives a major boost to my restaurant and its menu of authentic Jamaican cuisine. It was a wonderful feeling, especially knowing they were doing not just Miss T’s but other places in Jamaica; and that’s really my love to see our country get promoted in every way,” said Tomlinson.

“The Real Housewives of Atlanta [crew] were here, and they did a shoot and they really got everybody involved; they were amazing. They got the waitress involved, the bar people, the kitchen people, and it really boosted everybody’s ego and gave everybody a great feeling. Yeah, it was good,” Tomlinson added.

She said that even after shooting at the restaurant had ended, the crew members continued to “come back to Miss T’s Kitchen to eat”.

Tomlinson said the crew from The Bachelor was a little bit more independent, adding that “the experience was wonderful, nevertheless”.

“What I prepared for them was chicken breast fillet stuffed with callaloo, with creamy white wine sauce, and gungo rice and peas,” she further revealed.

A self-taught cook, Tomlinson continues to bask in the popularity of her restaurant and “loves the opportunity to expand” people’s understanding of Jamaican food.

Rundown, she explained, is an authentic local sauce not seen on most menus.  As she tells it: “It’s juice extracted from blended fresh coconut put to boil with thyme, mint, bay leaf and other herbs, and the Caribbean’s famed scotch bonnet peppers, then boiled down until it becomes a custard-like cream”.

“Many people come and want jerk chicken because that’s all they know; they kind of label us, you know, Jamaican jerk, jerk pork. But now I find people really want oxtail. They want to try the rundown; they want to try rundown anything.”

“You can put it on shrimp or vegetables, really anything,” she said. “I want to do for food what Bob Marley did for reggae music, you know, provide that authenticity.”

She calls her style traditional, but acknowledges she’s drawing on plenty of outside influences, as well as her chef’s intuition. “I travelled around Jamaica and travelled outside Jamaica, and I just opened my palate. I just put foods and flavours together,” she said. “You find people coming in now asking, ‘What are you making? We want to try!’”

She added that prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, “a growing number of in-the-know cruise and overnight visitors” were making reservations – sometimes a year in advance – to come bask in her carefully crafted eatery.

“The tourists come and feel all the Jamaican love and enjoy the Jamaican food and love it. When they come, they don’t want to leave,”  Tomlinson added. “They’ll tell you, all they want to do when they come is have a nice meal and relax.”

“My restaurant is really in the heart of Ocho Rios, I mean right across from the food market, right in the centre of town. “It’s really beautiful,” she said.

“It’s a rustic setting. What I tried to do is incorporate everything I’ve experienced. I like the nice vibrant colours, the traditional rustic wooden poles. Some nice bright cushions and colours for a wonderful feeling. So, we set this nice atmosphere and then we put a lot of passion and love into our food.”