Turtle Bay

High Street, West Green, Crawley, 01293 541101

CUISINES from Italy, India, Mexico and China have dominated the high street for many years.

But now the Turtle Bay restaurant chain wants to add the Caribbean islands to that list.

Launching four and a half years ago in Milton Keynes, the chain now has 17 sites across the country, and is currently opening a new restaurant a month.

Crawley’s 175-cover restaurant is about to celebrate its first anniversary, and will soon be joined in the south by another site in Bournemouth, and a Brighton Turtle Bay scheduled for 2016.

“We wanted to mix it up a bit,” says Colin Scott, the group executive chef, who created many of the restaurants 50 or more dishes after a fact-finding trip to the islands.

“There are more than 100 islands in the Caribbean that a lot of people don’t know about. The spices are completely different and unique to the islands.”

That said different places took different influences from the colonialists who came to the islands from the 16th century onwards.

“England and Spain left their mark,” says Scott. “Martinique took influences from France. And the heat from Trinidad is very Indian influenced.

“We have picked a bit from Trinidad, Jamaica and the Bajans in Barbados.”

The overall feel and atmosphere of the Turtle Bay restaurants is the Caribbean idea of liming – or chilling out – with a two-for-one cocktail offer lasting from 11.30am to 7pm, and restarting again from 10pm each day.

“All the venues are dressed for sunshine,” says Scott, adding the design for each site takes its inspiration from island life, although each centre is different in its own way.

“We like to use items like oil drums, beach front signs and shipping containers,” he says.

“It creates an atmosphere which is unique to the Caribbean.”

As for the food Scott is keen to promote the jerk chicken and curried goat.

“We are the biggest user of goat in this country,” he says. “We import it from Spain as unfortunately there are no goat farms here in the UK. We use the legs and thighs and slow-cook it at different temperatures to allow the muscles and fats to break down and become lovely and tender.”

The spices for the dishes come from Jamaica, with table sauces from Barbados. The recipes are kept as authentic as possible, although they do offer a burger too.

The menu includes Caribbean dishes such as escovitch fish, a whole roasted bream with tomato sauce, scotch bonnet chilli, onion, carrots, dressed salad and rice and peas for £12.50; curried goat with potatoes, carrots, rice and peas, sweet onion chutney and flatbread for £9.65; and Bob Marley’s favourite vegan ital cooking in the Rastafari Run Down of butter beans, corn cob, greens, carrots, sweet potato, herbs, coconut milk, rice and peas and fried dumplings for £9.65; available with sides of plantain or sweet potato fries from £2.35.

At the heart of the menu is the heat of the Scotch bonnet chilli, which Scott believes reflects the UK’s growing love of spicy food.

“We watch people’s faces as they eat it – they’re usually sweating, but they put more and more in,” says Scott.

To wash the food down, alongside their extensive cocktail menu Turtle Bay offers a range of Jamaican beers and more than 40 rums sourced from across the islands. The rums range from spiced and unspiced options, to vintage and strong 60% spirits, with Blackwell Rum a staple of the menu - created by Chris Blackwell, founder of Island Records, the label which first brought the music of Bob Marley to the UK.

Turtle Bay's expansion is all part of a growing interest in Caribbean food.

“Lots of supermarkets now have a Caribbean section,” says Scott. “It’s all about education. We wanted to bring this food to the high street so everyone could taste it.”

Open Sun to Wed 11.30am to 11pm, Thurs 11.30am to midnight, Fri/Sat 11.30am to 1am. Visit www.turtlebay.co.uk