Charlotte, NCCaribbean

Chef Trevor Lewis opened in 2010 and built one of the broadest Jamaican menus in the city, run from the flagship at 200 West Woodlawn Road. Curry goat over yellow rice is the standing order, with oxtails, jerk chicken and escovitch fish behind it, and the counter moves a steady lunch crowd through without much fuss.

A Haitian food truck that graduated to its first storefront at 2120 Kilborne Drive in 2025. The kitchen cooks legume, griot, island mac and cheese, and djon djon rice turned black by dried mushrooms, a dish that is still hard to find anywhere else in Charlotte, which is reason enough to drive east for it.

Chef Emerth Davis runs this Jamaican-owned kitchen at 1113 Pegram Street, where the jerk chicken arrives with mac and cheese and sweet plantains. Ackee and saltfish is on the menu for anyone who came looking for it, and the room stays small enough that orders come out of the kitchen fast.

A compact Jamaican menu at 2729 North Tryon Street covering jerk, curries and oxtails, with fish done fried, steamed, escoveitched or stewed depending on the day. Formerly Irie Vibes, it remains a takeout-first operation that people in the surrounding blocks treat as a weekly stop rather than an occasion.

Jamaica native Gavin Lawrence opened at 3011 West Boulevard in 2015, out near the airport, and the oxtails are what people drive for. Flaky beef patties, jerk chicken and rotis fill out a menu that stays close to what he grew up eating, served in a plain room with no ceremony attached.