Starting Up with Ajith Jayawickrema @ Turtle Bay

I love going to the Caribbean and I love eating authentic Caribbean food in the restaurants in and around the UK, especially in Bristol and Brixton. So in 2010, I founded Turtle Bay, recognising the UK’s taste for exotic foods.

I didn’t feel that anyone was bringing Caribbean culture to a mainstream audience or packaging it in a coherent way – so I made the most of the opportunity to celebrate all things rum and reggae!

We spent many months deciding on a name for the restaurant that, for us, would describe the beauty and soul of the Caribbean islands.

After visiting some of the most stunning locations that the Caribbean has to offer, we chose ‘Turtle Bay’, named after an area where many of the tourist pleasure cruises go and where you can feed turtles and swim with them, just north of Holetown, on the west coast of Barbados. It represented everything that was quintessentially Caribbean!

It’s the perfect place for a young, vibrant but family friendly restaurant to open and we can’t wait to make our guests happy by delivering a combination of deliciously addictive spicy Caribbean food, delightful drinks, warm and friendly service, all in a laid-back atmosphere.

Our menu aims to capture the heart and soul of the Caribbean, pulsed by reggae, salsa and calypso. The Caribbean evokes vibrant images of coconut palms, flavour sensations and tropical abundance and we want our food and drink to do exactly the same same thing.

Our kitchen chefs only cook with the best quality vegetables, fruits, herbs, and spices, immaculately fresh fish and shellfish, poultry, and lean meats to create dishes that range from the familiar to the exotic; contemporary and adventurous.

We use mouth-watering hot sauces, spice rubs, fragrant marinades and cool chutneys in our beach food, to fresh hand tossed salads, spice wood jerk grills and exotically spiced one pots, perfect for sharing with friends in true Caribbean Limin’ style.

Caribbean cooking is a patchwork quilt of colours, textures, and flavours; a multi-ethnic tapestry woven into our dishes from jerk chicken to saltfish patties to our Tobago tea and rum sour cocktails. Turtle Bay offers flavours that match the intensity of the tropical sun.

TRY IT
Turtle Bay opens next Thursday at 12 Friars Entry, Magdalen Street, Oxford