Twe@ting Out - Kensal Rise

Choose an area to discover and use social media to guide your culinary safari. We call it Twe@ting Out. Hardeep Singh Kohli is our man with his finger on the pulses

@misterhsk is in Kensal Rise tonight to #Twe@tOut. Be sure to point him in the right direction. And, be nice to him; he’s a good man.

10.27 sent by Qmisterhsk

@misterhsk Isn’t Kensal Rise something men of a certain age get after watching repeats of the Good Life?17.34 sent by @TwitDinosaur

@misterhsk the only thing I know of in that area is the pretty cemetery! #ItsAHardGothLife

18.26 sent by @AJ_Purple

North West London is defined by its contradictions. I can’t think of a part of the capital that has such variety in its neighbourhoods, stumbling so soon into its suburbs. It’s the part of London I know best, a history rolling back to the early Nineties, a land where time forgot. South Hampstead was on the way up, Kilburn still Irish and affordable, Cricklewood cursed and cajoled and the butt of every joke. Back then, Kensal Rise and Kensal Green were the heart of the ghetto, both Irish and Caribbean. I can’t say I visited either very often; I was warned against it. As the Nineties softened into the Noughties and Richard Curtis and the fellow Notting Hillites conspired to make that neighbourhood yet more unaffordable, the trend tended to the north of Harrow Road. Priced out of Portobello, leveraged out of Ladbroke Grove, the West London wannabe hipsters pioneered a path to the Kensals. There they discovered a whole new world of the affordable aesthetic. Soon missives were dispatched to their kith and kin and the colonisation of Kensal continued. It was with a little trepidation I ventured back to North West London. I had grown quite attached to it. Would the gentrification be complete or has the project stalled?

Exiting Kensal Rise, at the top of the hill, the landscape was old and new. I noticed an exciting new development. Island on the Rise is a Caribbean restaurant on the edge of the residential housing area, across the road from the station. It opened a year ago and I was greeted by three generations of Jamaican women. Beverley, the owner, assisted by her daughter Catriona, offered the warmest of welcomes. Grandmother Lucille sat outside in the gently fading sun, allowing me a gentle and occasional flirt.

There are disappointingly few Caribbean restaurants in a city famed for it’s West Indian communities. This is a conundrum for which I have never received a satisfactory explanation. There are plenty of take-away joints but that smash and grab approach to eating doesn’t allow a more reflective eating experience. Eating Caribbean food in my front room, listening to my music, is a suspiciously two-dimensional experience. Half the joy of eating out is the ambience, the atmosphere of the place itself.

Island on the Rise is a small, simple and straightforward cafe. The curried goat was neither small, simple or straightforward. As I spoke to a few of the locals, those hunched outside the barber’s shop around the corner, it seems that Kensal has a profound history with Caribbean communities. While I had heard of the Caribbean influence they seemed quietly invisible to me while I had lived around there. Perhaps Island on the Rise is a visible reclamation of that history.

I adore curried goat and hunt out the best places in Hackney whenever I can. There is a synchronicity between Caribbean spicing and Indian food, given the impact of the Indian immigrants to the islands’ cuisine. A good goat curry has all the sweet depth of the meat and the mellowed flavours of the spice of the gravy; all atop a bed of the nuttiest rice and peas. Island on the Rise delivers just that; no surprise then that they count among their regulars former Gooner Ian Wright and soul songstress Shola Ama. Suffice to say I’ll be travelling back across the North London Line to see Beverley for a little more of her island delights.

@misterhsk @ESFoodMag Yup, check out @theshopnw10 drinks in vintage milk bottles/jam jars. The Island on College Rd for live music.

13.49 sent by @dominuk

Chamberlayne Road, starting in the north, is almost sleepily suburban, waking with a start as it heads south towards the Harrow Road. Walking down the hill the multiculturalism of the area is most apparent; the clash, collision of the old with the new; that which was never questioned with that which is the sine qua non of the incomer. Either side of the aforementioned barbers is a mezze bar and a sushi café, soon followed by one of those huge supermarkets: coriander and cava almost twenty-four hours a day. Designer, hand-built kitchen shops, gastropubs, a Chinese healthcare centre are punctuated by internet phone cafes, old school newsagents and mini-cab offices. (There is even a place called Jivita Ayurveda offering ‘organic living for body and mind’). Kensal Rise is on the up.