Marlon James on why Kingston is Jamaica's beating cultural heart
If you're looking for a good time, Jamaica is where to go – as Marlon James knows all too well.
The author, who was born and raised in Kingston, often heads back to the island from his base in New York to shoot documentaries, hang out with his friends and (these days) to film TV shows like Get Millie Black.
And with more tourists than ever heading to Jamaica to enjoy it's sun, sea, and rum we sat down with James to discuss how to do a holiday the right way.
I am going to advocate for Kingston. I lived there most of the time I was in Jamaica, and it's still my favourite place. I think a lot of times when people come to Jamaica, they go straight for the beaches or for the coastline, and that's great, but Kingston actually is on the coast. And the great thing about being in Kingston is that you're in a centre of culture. There's always something going on. There's Dub Club in the hills, if you want to get classic reggae; there's always some sort of party going on.
I was last there a month ago, with me and my beautiful self. I was actually shooting a documentary about being an LGBT Jamaican coming back home. So that involved talking to a lot of young people, talking to people in different scenes and so on. I'm there quite a bit: for me, Jamaica will always be home.
If I'm at a hotel, I'm usually in Treasure Beach. So I'm usually at Jakes. Or if I'm in Kingston, I'm usually at AC Hotel. If I want to be up in the hills, I go all the way up to Strawberry Hill.
Rasta pasta. Rastafarian culture was vegan before we had the name vegan. And I like Rasta food. It's sort of a guilty pleasure, I think. How do you take fettuccine alfredo and take out all the nasty parts? I'm not the biggest fan of dairy. It's kind of that.
When I'm there, I'm eating at friend's houses. Restaurants? There's one up in the hills, a vegan restaurant called Stush in the Bush. Stush, in Jamaica, is patois for posh. It's absolutely fantastic. You definitely have to reserve ahead, because it's a pretty remote location. I love going to that when I can. But I'm a pretty regular Jamaican, so I'm usually not far from somewhere selling Jamaican patties. I'm either eating patties or I'm on the street buying pan chicken late in the night. They're cooking it in an old oil drum, it's steaming hot, and it's two in the morning and you're standing on the roadside and you're eating chicken.
I'd hope I'm in Kingston, so I would check out the National Gallery. Then I'd probably go to one of the many restaurants that are in downtown Kingston. You particularly want the old Chinese restaurants, which may have secretly been there a hundred years; you want to soak that up. I think downtown Kingston gets a bad rap. It's actually really quiet, which is weird. I would start from there, from the harbour, and just go all the way up into the interior, go to Devon House, in the centre of Kingston. It was built by a runaway slave who escaped to Venezuela and came back a millionaire. Then just sort of keep going, until you hit the hillside, and then you can go to like The Gap Café in the hills, or you can go to Skyline Drive and look out at Kingston. Slip into Dub Club near the end of the night and then just come back down off the hill, and then you're done.
Go to somewhere where there isn't a road. It's one thing to go to the port town Ocho Rios. But have you been to the small town of Above Rocks? There are places in, say, St Catherine, where, without knowing it, you're suddenly on a mountain cliff and you're looking over the mountains. The interior country is so fantastic. And when you go there, you're basically dropped into 1924, except they have wireless internet. It's a great way of seeing all the different Jamaicas there are without going very far.
Grace Jones's My Jamaican Guy, because it's a song about rural Jamaica. It's about her guy, but it's also about a person who washes clothes by the river and lives a pretty rural and idyllic life. And I think in some ways that always reminds me of Jamaica. Then just stuff like Bob Marley's Three Little Birds, which does it as well, or a Jamaican song like Greetings, by Half Pint. But ask me tomorrow, and I'll give you three different songs.
There's two. I can't believe I'm going to talk about a beach, but I want to talk about a beach. For me, there's a beach called Winnifred Beach. You're not going to see it on the map. You have to ask somebody where it is and they'll show you. It's almost as if you accidentally tripped into the Blue Lagoon; it's fantastic and it's not that well-known. Then, there's a very famous beach called Fort Clarence, which people go to. Stay on that road and continue going, and you'll come across this thing called Two Sisters Cave. They'll tell you it's not open; it's open. And you can go down into the cave. You can even take a canoe from in the caves out to open sea. That's my secret place.
In Jamaica, just go until you find something. Somebody's always having a party, somebody's always having some event, preferably downtown, preferably somewhere near the sea. So there, you know, there's always something going on. There's always a party; there's always some sort of street dance going on. There was a time in Jamaica when the biggest dances started at two in the morning. Wow. And you just stay partying until eight; basically morning to morning parties. Clear your slate, because it will be filled up.
My best friend Ingrid. I mean, you can call any Jamaican to have a good time. Honestly, call a total stranger. We're fun-loving people. We love to enjoy ourselves, so you're never too far from a celebration. And Jamaicans are very open and welcoming. Get out of the hotel, honestly, and if you're at a hotel that tries to discourage you from going out, leave that hotel.
Jamaicans are very big on style. They're very big on fashion. Don't be the one idiot to overdress and end up sweating. Stay away from the Jamaican clichés. You do not need a 'No problem' T-shirt. In Jamaica, you kind of come as you are. And I think that's part of the laid-back atmosphere. It doesn't necessarily mean underdress. There is a kind of casual glamour to it. People are dressed simple, but they're put together. It's a T-shirt and shorts where it's probably tailored or something, it's the little details.
Certainly bring home the coffee, because it's super expensive. Once you leave Jamaica, grab as much of that Blue Mountain coffee as you can. I do; I am kind of shameless. Yeah, if it's Jamaican, I say grab the food. Grab a box of patties. Grab your Jamaican stuff, like, find out what a gizzada is and ask for it. No, I'm not going to tell you what it is. Just carry back all these things that will perplex British customs.
Get Millie Black is streaming now on Channel 4
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
USA Today
2 hours ago
- USA Today
Trump travel ban includes 12 nations, partially restricts entry from seven others
Trump travel ban includes 12 nations, partially restricts entry from seven others Show Caption Hide Caption President Trump bans travel from several countries around the world President Donald Trump signed a proclamation that bans travel from 12 countries and restricts seven others. WASHINGTON ― President Donald Trump has issued a full travel ban blocking the entry of foreign nationals from 12 countries into the United States, reviving a controversial policy from his first term that is likely to be challenged in court. Trump cited "national security risks" posed by citizens of the targeted nations, which include several Middle Eastern and African countries, in a June 4 proclamation he signed imposing the ban. He also partially restricted the entry of foreign nationals from seven other nations. The restrictions are scheduled to go into effect on June 9. The ban prohibits entry into the U.S. of foreign nationals from Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen. Trump issued partial travel suspensions for foreign nationals from Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela. Trump presidency: Marco Rubio says US will revoke visas from Chinese students, add new restrictions In videotaped remarks from the Oval Office, Trump pointed to last weekend's fiery assault on pro-Jewish demonstrators in Boulder, Colorado, carried out by suspect Mohamed Sabry Soliman, a native of Egypt who came to the U.S. on a tourist visa in late 2022 and stayed after the visa expired. "The recent terror attack in Boulder, Colorado, has underscored the extreme dangers posed to our country by the entry of foreign nationals who are not properly vetted, as well as those who come here as temporary visitors and overstayed their visas," Trump said. "We don't want them." Egypt is not among the countries facing new restrictions despite Trump invoking the attack, which the White House has blamed on the Biden administration's immigration policies. Trump's travel ban: A timeline look throughout his first presidency Who faces a travel ban? The move comes after the Trump administration has worked aggressively to deport immigrants who are in the United States unlawfully, halted the government's refugee resettlement program, and last week announced plans to "aggressively" revoke visas of Chinese students. The ban resembles similar actions Trump took during his first term to bar the entry of foreign nationals from several predominantly Muslim countries. The restrictions do not apply to visas that have already been granted, lawful permanent residents, certain athletes, immediate family members of current visa holders, and other classes of individuals for whom the administration granted exceptions. Travelers react to the latest travel ban from President Trump "Pros and cons." Travelers in Los Angeles responded to the news of President Donald Trump's travel ban impacting nearly 20 countries. "In the 21st century, we've seen one terror attack after another carried out by foreign-visa overstayers from dangerous places. They should not be in our country," Trump said. "We will not let what happened in Europe happen to America." Council on American-Islamic Relations Executive Director Nihad Awad said the government already vets visa applicants extensively. The new order risks separating families, depriving students of educational opportunities and blocking patients from unique medical treatment, he said. "President Trump's new travel ban targeting mostly Muslim and African nations and raising the specter of more vague free speech restrictions is overbroad, unnecessary and ideologically motivated,' Awad said. "Automatically banning students, workers, tourists, and other citizens of these targeted nations from coming to the United States will not make our nation safer." Amy Spitalnick, CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, said in a post on social media that the antisemitic attack in Boulder shouldn't be used to justify a ban on travel from primarily Muslim-majority countries. 'We'll keep saying it: the Jewish community's legitimate fears and concerns should not (be) exploited to undermine core democratic norms, or otherwise advance discriminatory & unconstitutional policies,' Spitalnick said. 'Doing so only makes Jews – and all communities – less safe.' Rep. Judy Chu, a California Democrat who introduced legislation in February that sought to prevent the Trump administration from banning travel to the U.S. by people of any religious group, lashed out at Trump on X. "Just now, Trump has re-issued his disgusting, bigoted, and Islamophobic travel ban. This goes against our core American values while doing nothing to make us safer. We can do better, we must do better," she said. What travelers need to know: Trump issues new travel ban affecting nearly 20 countries Trump revisits travel bans Trump's first-term travel bans were overturned repeatedly in the courts for apparent religious or racial motivations before being upheld by the Supreme Court. Within hours of the new ban, the International Refugee Assistance Project, a group that sued Trump in 2017, slammed the ban as arbitrary for making exceptions for athletes traveling to the United States for sporting events such as the Olympics and the FIFA World Cup, "while closing the door to ordinary people who've gone through extensive legal processes to enter the United States." "It is yet another shameful attempt by the Trump administration to sow division, fear, and chaos," Stephanie Gee, senior director of U.S. Legal Services, said in a statement. Trump's latest ban follows through on a day-one executive order directing his administration to identify countries throughout the world "for which vetting and screening information is so deficient as to warrant a full or partial suspension on the entry or admission of nationals from those countries." Trump said he evaluated recommendations from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and Attorney General Pam Bondi based on foreign policy, national security, and counterterrorism goals and largely accepted their recommendations. Factors included whether a county "has a significant terrorist presence within its territory" or a high rate of people overstaying their visas, Trump's order said. The president said the administration also considered a country's "cooperation with accepting back its removable nationals." At one point, the administration looked at slapping as many as 43 countries with restrictions. Egypt was not on either of the draft lists that circulated in March. The president said in the order that Rubio and Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller provided him a list on April 9 of countries to consider. The White House did not immediately explain why it took Trump nearly two months after he received the report to take action. The State Department did not respond to a request for comment. "Very simply," Trump said, "we cannot have open migration from any country where we cannot safely and reliably vet and screen those who seek to enter the United States." Contributing: Bart Jansen, USA TODAY Reach Joey Garrison on X @joeygarrison.
San Francisco Chronicle
2 hours ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
This S.F. toast cost $13.50, and I'd buy it again
Each week, critic MacKenzie Chung Fegan shares some of her favorite recent bites, the dishes and snacks and baked goods that didn't find their way into a full review. Want the list a few days earlier? Sign up for her free newsletter, Bite Curious. Remember when The Discourse revolved around the price of toast at the Mill? A simpler, sepia-toned time… The current seasonal toast special costs $13.50 (more than three times the $4 that sparked outrage 12 years ago), but it's 'toast' in the same way that 'The Metamorphosis' is a book about a bug. A chonky, inch-thick slice of Josey Baker's whole grain Wonder Bread is slathered with chive cream cheese, then dolloped with a punchy, vegan pesto made with both basil and arugula. The element that takes the toast from serviceable breakfast to composed dish, however, is the crunchy, garlicky clusters of chili crisp pepitas that are sprinkled over the top. Yow. Go eat this while it's still on the menu. Scribe Winery takes its food seriously. Their chef-in-residence program reads like a who's who of bestselling cookbook authors and James Beard honorees, and the quartet behind Top 100 restaurant Valley all met while working at Scribe. The team grows much of their own produce, collects eggs from the spunky vineyard chickens and serves incredible beans. Spiritually, beans are the opposite of caviar on a restaurant menu; they're humble, a hard sell, and a chef isn't going to serve them unless they're absolute knockouts. Scribe's pink beans are brothy and creamy, seasoned with a good amount of acid and showered with fresh herbs. Last weekend, my family celebrated the Dragon Boat Festival with a proper feast, anchored by homemade zongzi and a cured duck that's a specialty of Yiyang in Hunan, our home province. The ducks are marinated in a variety of Chinese spices and herbs, many of them selected for their medicinal properties, before being air dried. The resulting delicacy is a dark reddish brown in color, mildly spicy and very savory in addition to being good for your spleen and blood circulation, my cousin tells me! Cousin Winnie's house, or the internet
National Geographic
6 hours ago
- National Geographic
In the Sichuan capital, renewed heritage appreciation is helping ancient teahouses go viral
This article was produced by National Geographic Traveller (UK). It's barely 9am when I slide into a bamboo armchair at Heming Tea House in Chengdu's sprawling People's Park. This century-old stalwart is one of the oldest teahouses in the megacity that I called home until I was nine. While I was growing up here, in one of China's oldest tea-growing areas, many weekends were spent in an open-air teahouse like this one. While adults played games of mahjong and the kids ran riot, roving hawkers carrying heavy baskets balanced on bamboo shoulder poles would come round selling snacks. The most famous of these is dan dan mian (shoulder pole noodles), where a nest of cold noodles is placed on a hot and tongue-numbing mala chilli oil base, topped with spring onion and minced meat, then mixed and greedily devoured. But as I sip my grassy mao feng green tea, I'm struck by how unusually busy it is. Hordes of tourists with phones in video mode stream past the chairs crammed under teak pavilions and beige parasols. Most seats already filled by pensioners putting the world to rights or families cracking into toasted sunflower seeds. Heming Tea House has lately gained wang hong ('internet fame') with Chinese travellers — the local expression for going viral. Photograph by Getty Images, Plej92 A group of photography students is playing cards next to me, their backs turned on a pile of cameras carelessly stacked on a spare chair. I lean over and ask why there are so many people here on a weekday. One of the students looks up and tells me Heming has lately gained wang hong ('internet fame') with Chinese travellers — the local expression for going viral. Later, I head to Lao Chuzi Sichuan Restaurant for a family gathering. The low-key restaurant and teahouse on the top floor of a four-storey office block isn't particularly well known, but my uncle picked it because it's a favourite in his neighbourhood, and it serves a stellar line-up of Sichuan dishes, including garlic-infused fish, fragrant aubergine and thin slices of poached pork served with a drizzle of sesame-laced chilli sauce. I bring up the wang hong phenomenon. 'There are wang hong places everywhere now and business is booming,' my uncle tells me, noting a similarly popular place down the road: 11th Street. Later, we stroll over to take a look. Amid the low-rise residential blocks is a row of a dozen or so two-storey buildings, their exposed wooden beams and pitched roofs incongruous with the more modern surroundings. Each houses a hole-in-the-wall joint; their names — like Xiangxiang Mian ('alley noodles') or Du Youyou Boboji ('Du Youyou's spicy skewers') — advertise their specialities. Wooden tables and bamboo chairs spill onto the street in front, where there are as many people taking photos as there are noisily eating. 'These all used to be teahouses,' says my uncle, who's lived in the neighbourhood for over 30 years and watched the buildings' metamorphosis into buzzy restaurants. Before that, this ramshackle collective was made up of homes built during the tumultuous period after the Qing dynasty ended in 1912 and before the People's Republic of China was established in 1949. Since the 1990s, billions of pounds of investment have poured into Chengdu from the central government and private developers, triggering a building boom that's given large swathes of the city a complete facelift. These buildings have somehow escaped the demolitions that razed their neighbours, and ironically their rundown appearance may now become their saving grace as people seek to hold on to the last vestiges of an old Chengdu. Head chef, Steven Tan, stands proudly at Mi Xun Teahouse at The Temple House hotel. Before it was a Michelin-starred vegetarian restaurant, Mi Xun started with tea and snacks until more and more people requested the food. Heming Tea House is a century-old stalwart, and one of the oldest teahouses in the megacity of Chengdu. Photograph by Alamy, Lejeanvre Philippe In recent years, there's been a concerted effort to protect and redevelop old buildings with heritage value — the type that don't hold historical significance, like temples and monuments, but still have a place in the city's history. One of the more sensitively done projects is the downtown Taikoo Li shopping and entertainment complex, where a handful of 19th-century homes surrounding Daci Temple were restored and given a new lease of life a decade ago. Mi Xun Teahouse, the Michelin-starred vegetarian restaurant at The Temple House hotel, occupies one of these. The grey brick walls of this single-storey building — set aside from the modern tower that makes up the main hotel — hide a tranquil courtyard that transforms into a wood-panelled al fresco dining spot in fine weather, a single tree providing dappled shade. It's here that I meet executive chef Tony Xu, who tells me that in the beginning Mi Xun was just supposed to be a teahouse. 'Because Chengdu is very big on tea, we started with tea and some snacks,' he says, explaining that teahouses almost always serve some kind of food. 'But more and more people were requesting our food, so we added more dishes to the menu. And now people mainly come for the food.' Tony takes inspiration from Buddhist culinary traditions in a nod to the temple next door, and so the menu is vegetarian with a very subtle use of spices and no garlic or onion. He is also an innovator, preparing dishes such as a vegan dan dan mian, made with an egg-free noodle of his own creation, containing wheat and cake flour for extra bite and spinach juice for colour; and mapo tofu, which is flavoured with mushrooms instead of the traditional pork mince. The result is a modern take on classic Sichuan flavours, with striking visual appeal. Executive chef at Mi Xun Teahouse, Tony Xu takes inspiration from Buddhist culinary traditions in a nod to the temple next door, so the menu is vegetarian with a very subtle use of spices. He is also an innovator, preparing dishes such as mapo tofu, which is flavoured with mushrooms instead of the traditional pork mince. The result is a modern take on classic Sichuan flavours, with striking visual appeal. Photograph by Jiang Xiaodan For the tea connoisseur, Mi Xun also offers a selection of premium brews such as da hong pao from Fujian province, and Pu'er from Yunnan, served in a pared-down version of the traditional gongfu tea-preparation ritual. Instead of an elaborate ceremony where a tea master washes the leaves, warms the tiny cups and prepares the tea, some of these stages are done behind the scenes. All the guests need do is steep the tea according to their preference. Attention is still paid to the drinkware — green tea always served in a glass pot, for example, while red tea comes in white ceramic. 'We've simplified things so everyone can enjoy the experience and take joy from tasting tea,' says teahouse manager Yvonne Du. Tea is cheap and widely available in Chengdu — meaning it's enjoyed by a wide cross-section of society. 'You'll find teahouses all over China,' explains Susan Yin, a guide at food tour company Lost Plate. 'In Chengdu, tea is for everyone. It doesn't matter what your background is, or whether you're rich or poor.' Yin is my guide for a food tour just east of the downtown area. The company's co-founder, Ruixi Hu, lives in Chengdu and designed the itinerary around some of her favourite haunts. As part of the tour, we hop into a cramped tuk-tuk that whizzes us around the neighbourhood. At one stop, we try dan hong gao, fluffy pancakes stuffed with a mix of sesame, crushed peanuts and sugar. At another, we tuck into enormous bowls of freshly made pork wontons, some in plain broth and some swimming in fragrant chilli oil. We also stop at casual noodle shop Tang Dan Dan Tian Shui Mian, visited by the late US chef Anthony Bourdain for his CNN show Parts Unknown, and slurp through bowls of tian shui mian ('sweet water noodles') — a thick, springy, hand-cut variety that comes slicked in a sweet, peanut and sesame paste sauce. Each houses a hole-in-the-wall joint; their names — like Xiangxiang Mian ('alley noodles') or Du Youyou Boboji ('Du Youyou's spicy skewers') — advertise their specialities. Wooden tables and bamboo chairs spill onto 11th Street in front, where there are as many people taking photos as there are noisily eating. It's only when we sit down at a restaurant serving jiang hu cuisine — a rough-and-ready style of cooking that has its origins in the street markets of Sichuan, a province that's big on flavour intensity — that Yin and I finally get some time to chat. As we liberate chunks of dry-fried chicken from underneath piles of chillies, and fish out tender slivers of beef from a spicy broth, Yin tells me she settled in Chengdu over a decade ago for two very simple reasons: the food and the lifestyle. Taking a sip of buckwheat tea, she adds: 'Chengdu is a laid-back city, and the best way to experience this is in a teahouse.' Audley has a 15-day tour of China, which includes two nights in Chengdu, as well as time in Beijing, Xi'an, Guilin, Yangshuo and Shanghai. From £5,495 per person, including flights, transfers, B&B accommodation and excursions, such as the Lost Plate food tour. This story was created with the support of Audley. Published in the July/August 2025 issue of National Geographic Traveller (UK). To subscribe to National Geographic Traveller (UK) magazine click here. (Available in select countries only).
