REVIEW: The Rum Kitchen, All Saints Road, Notting Hill

The Rum Kitchen is certainly not the most authentic Jamaican restaurant in town, but it doesn’t pretend to be either – it’s cool, it’s hip, it’s relaxed and it’s Jamaican inspired. Inside it’s decked out beach shack style, featuring an impressive array of over 100 varieties of rum and a cracking playlist. They’ve also got a second branch in Soho too. To get us in the mood we started with an alternative version to an espresso martini (my favourite), The Pre-Emptive Strike. I’ve no idea what made its way into this concoction, but I can tell you it was sweet, packed one hell of a punch and was a marvellous thing of beauty.

These small enamel coated cups, filled with a boozy rum punch were the drinks in question which got me royally f****d. They were again sweet (probably the rum), fruity and dangerously easy to drink. After my third I’d lost count and the sweet tunes pumping out from that reggae playlist got me swaying. That’s the thing about The Rum Kitchen, it’s difficult to see it as a restaurant, it’s more of a bar with food – which in that aspect makes it a marvellous evening out and one which I wouldn’t hesitate about returning for.

The wings. I’m sure that’s what you really want to know about. I can confirm – they were very good. So to not serve you a mountain of cold wings, they instead serve about 4 of them in basket each time, arriving steamy and hot. When you finally finish once portion, they’ll keep on bringing you more – until you explode. The wings themselves were coated in a sweet and richly flavoured marinade and were tender to the touch – all packing a little bit of spice. At last count I think I got through about six of them, which was a pathetic attempt – I was aiming for 30.

One thing though that really let this place down were the accompanying sweet potato fries – they lacked in any form of seasoning. They were pleasant enough but against those full flavoured wings you could really taste their basic quality. Hot dipping sauce on the other hand helped combat that and was made some incredibly hot habanero chillies – which were not only spicy – but close to bringing fire straight from my mouth.

The Rum Kitchen is certainly a fantastic place to hang out in, chat with friends, drink cocktails and nibble on some food but I’m not entirely sure how I feel about it as an actual restaurant. The drinks side of this place on the other hand were really very good. Would I go back? For drinks and those wings – yes. But for a full on meal, perhaps not. I’ll instead be dancing away downstairs in the basement to Reggae tunes until the early hours of the morning.

6/10