The Jerk Huts bring the unique cuisine and color of the island paradise to Tampa.

By CHRIS SHERMAN, Times Food Critic
Published August 11, 2005

TAMPA - Is nutmeg the secret t'ing that puts the magic into Jamaican jerk?

Maybe the special ingredient is the sweetnesses we describe as allspice, which grows wild on the islands. Certainly ginger livens up the flavors as fast as dance hall reggae, and thyme is the unnoticed herb that makes all the difference.

All of them, or the spirit that dips into the sweet end of the spice rack at that same time it sets a fuse of pepper, onion and garlic, is what gives jerk its distinctive taste.

Few other cuisines mix such a range of spices and tastes - sweet, hot and savory - as Jamaican cooking. They are added by as little as a teaspoon to bring sweetness and pleasure to humble foods, from canned fish, big carrots and cabbage to bony cuts of meat. Some of the tricks are borrowed from the French, the Spanish, the African and the East Indian, but the key ingredients are home-grown.

For years some of the liveliest and most dependable tastes of Jamaica have been from the good people at the Jerk Hut, and I'm glad the insufferable heat of recent weeks sent me there.

Jamaican cooking arrived on a later boat than reggae and slowly found a home in the states. In St. Petersburg, that home is Saffron's in the Jungle Prada area, started by Edyth James and her husband, the late Cheffie. In Tampa, it's the Jerk Huts, one in a former fast-food restaurant near the University of South Florida and the other a steam table oasis for the lunch bunch downtown.

At Andrew Ashmead's locations uptown and down, island cooking is served in warm reggae colors, red, orange and green veggies, and meats and gravies in a full spectrum of browns, from curry yellow and pale gold to bark.

My idea was not to fight fire with fire; an overdose of Crystal hot sauce could do that. I wasn't interested in combat so much as making my peace with heat. Let my taste buds travel someplace that was hot and interesting, and learn to embrace the weather.

Give me some Bob Marley and brown stew chicken and my sweat will give me strength and a smile.

The Hut's specialty is of course jerk, that special Jamaican mix that can marinate chicken, pork or anything in a kaleidoscope of flavors.

The same complexity is at play in different intensity in everything else on the menu. It starts with peas and rice, a staple throughout the Caribbean which is juicy and bursting with fun here, as if the dish was spiced with cinnamon instead of pepper.

For sheer heat, pepper shrimp delivered the most firepower. Shell-on shrimp were cooked in an especially peppery boil that would drain the spunk out of Old Bay. For a different sensation, try escovitch snapper, tarted up with onions, tomato and vinegar, a cooling counterpoint to the heat and sweet.

Or order curry and roti, to see how close the East and West Indies are - and how far apart. Here, the curry in vegetables is mild, more sweet than hot, and roti is a thin, yellow wrap from a skillet, not a tandoor oven, and much too big and messy to pick up. Still, a wad of fun.

Curry goat, which I've come to enjoy, was too lean and mean. But I should note for the connoisseur who has acquired a taste for all things goat, the Saturday soup is "mannish water," a goat stew and fabled virility potion.

For tamer tastes there is restorative power aplenty in the skillet dishes made with oil, patience and browning, a sauce that can be actual brown stock or anything between soy and Maggi, just short of Pickapeppa sauce. Yet browning onions, tomato and carrot can turn the boniest fish or odd chicken pieces into a spell of nourishing warmth and fragrance. At Jerk Hut, brown stew chicken comes out fabulously. And when you start with something as rich as oxtail, you can't go wrong.

These dishes are hefty plates for tropical trencherfolk on lunch break, but you can go smaller - or add on.

Plantains, callaloo greens, or yam and dumplings get the same down-home lovin' we find in soul food or a Southern country diner. Island flavors are a bonus of the side: crispy conch fritters and Jamaican patties. Empanadas are fired up with curry and reggae spices and lard-crisp crust.
Beer, even rum, should not be your drink of choice in any Jamaican restaurant that stocks the island's river of natural juices, teas and home-grown sodas. Jerk Hut has the full rainbow, ginger beer and soursop to Kola Champagne.

Maybe it's not the nutmeg. Something else gives Jamaican food and service at Jerk Hut a lilt in this heat instead of wilting.

It's the carrot juice.

- Chris Sherman dines anonymously and unannounced. The St. Petersburg Times pays for all expenses. A restaurant's advertising has nothing to do with selection for a review or the assessment of its quality. Sherman can be reached at 727 893-8585 or sherman@sptimes.com