Chef Jonathan Simpson turns up the heat with Jabba’s Seafood and Grill

Delighting palates with bold island flavours, Jabba’s has been making waves locally and internationally with its famous ‘peppa swims’. The brand has since expanded to a restaurant, with a diverse menu line-up that offers so much more than just seafood. Owner and head chef, Jonathan Simpson, is a culinary composer, blending island flavours into a harmony of savoury bites.

“At Jabba’s Seafood and Grill, you’re guaranteed to get seafood from the menu. We prepare fish brown-stewed, steamed, escoveitched, cooked down in coconut sauce or roasted. We also have lobster, crab, shrimp, served peppered, curried, in garlic or honey garlic sauce. There is seafood boil, and there are even octopus options,” he told Food.

Outside of seafood, on Wednesday, the restaurant keeps the tradition alive with scrumptious stew peas, inclusive of pigtail and beef. There is also the signature barbecued chicken or the barbecued pigtails. The herb-roasted chicken is delightfully tasty. So too are the jerk pork fried rice, curried chicken, oxtail, fried chicken and curried goat. The pasta selections include jerk pork, lobster, ‘peppa swims’, shrimp, chicken or sausage. And vegetarians can enjoy curried vegetables and curried chickpeas.

This enriched culinary history, he explained, stems from his deep-rooted love for food. Chef Simpson recalled tuning in to Mazie Miller on Creative Kitchen and hosting his very own segment at home for his loved ones. “It was a big production in my eyes, and I think that’s where my love for food began,” he said.

As time grew on, so did his passion, and he took matters into his own hands every chance he could. Life led him to pursue a degree in operations management at The University of the West Indies, Mona campus. And Simpson went on to pursue a career in banking. This move seemed to rekindle his love for cooking, which soon became his side hustle.

“I think my side hustle has always been food. I used to make barbecue chicken on a Saturday for almost two years as a teenager to make a little money,” he revealed.

When the bank did a redundancy exercise and he was cut, Chef Simpson decided that it was time to embark on his entrepreneurial pursuits full-time. “I was going to sell pepper shrimp to make money. And that’s what started this entire journey: pepper shrimp.”

He started by offering the spicy variety to friends at first, “Then, through Instagram marketing, persons would call to order shrimp and I’d drive and deliver it to them.” Then the network expanded to Bickel’s Restaurant in Liguanea, Select Grocers in Manor Park, General Foods and the Progressive Group.

“That gave us the exposure we needed,” he shared, adding, “It took a while for the consumer to really trust it and try this cold shrimp on the shelf. But once they tasted it, that was it. Some social media influencers even picked up our product voluntarily and tried it for themselves. That promotion gave us some good mileage as well.”

Two years into the food venture, Jabba’s became the go-to ‘peppa swims’ provider. But there was more in store for Chef Simpson, who went on to open his restaurant out of what he describes as necessity. “This whole business kind of came out of necessity. There was a shortage of shrimp. And since we weren’t able to receive the supply to meet the demands of our customers, we decided to get creative.”

A friend of his suggested that Simpson cook in the meantime, introducing the wider public to his barbecued chicken. That idea then evolved to offering crab and shrimp. Before he knew it, he was first serving meals from a trailer before opening his restaurant. Branching out into catering, he moved from Constant Spring to Grosvenor Terrace, and before settling into his new kitchen at Summit on Chelsea Avenue over a year ago.

“So far, the move has been good. We’ve gotten some good exposure through the various events that are kept here, like the Summit Food Village, which happens on [a] Friday and gets a whole lot of traffic. There’s a game night on Thursdays as well,” he highlighted.

As far as the restaurant goes, he explained that many aren’t aware that Jabba’s has a new location. And he hopes to change that. “That’s something we are working on. What you experience at Jabba’s is authentic. The taste and quality are superior to a lot of businesses out there. I want to make Jabba’s one of the big local food brands in Jamaica,” he added.

krysta.anderson@gleanerjm.com