Jamaica Food & Drink Festival takes on the Big Apple with ‘Kuyah NY’

KINGSTON, Jamaica – The Jamaica Food & Drink Festival (JFDF) is taking Kuyah beyond Jamaica for the first time, bringing four chefs and a taste of the festival to Brooklyn, New York.

In a recent press release, organisers shared that the event, set for Thursday, September 24, is being hosted in partnership with Aliya Cocktail Den at Hotel Indigo Williamsburg.

Kuyah NY will feature chefs Scotley Innis, Andre Fowles, India Doris and Patrick Simpson, each presenting their own interpretation of Jamaican food.

Citing the large Jamaican and Caribbean community present in the city, organisers described New York as ‘a natural first stop’. The city’s growing interest in Caribbean cooking is also part of the reason the festival found a home in the Big Apple.

“New York has always had a strong connection to Jamaica,” said Co-Festival Director

Alicia Bogues. “We have people from the diaspora who come home every year for the festival. This time, we are bringing a piece of the festival to them, while giving a wider New York audience the opportunity to experience Kuyah.”

Organisers promise variety, noting that the four featured chefs represent different corners of contemporary Jamaican cooking.

Andre Fowles is a three-time Chopped champion and author of My Jamaican Table, while India Doris, co-owner and executive chef of Markette in New York City, received the 2025 Michelin Guide Northeast Cities Young Chef Award.

First-generation Jamaican Scotley Innis is co-owner of Continent Brooklyn and Aliya  Cocktail Den and appeared as a guest chef at Kuyah in Jamaica in 2026, while New Jersey-based chef and restaurateur Patrick Simpson completes the line-up, working with Walkerswood, one of the festival’s longest-standing partners.

Each chef will serve three dishes, with the menu built around the premise that has defined the event locally: taking Jamaican flavours and ingredients and doing something unexpected with them.

“Jamaican food is having an interesting moment,” said Co-Festival Director Nicole Pandohie. “There is a generation of chefs showing just how much range there is in Jamaican cuisine. We want people to come expecting Jamaican food, but not necessarily knowing what form it is going to take.”

That approach will carry through to dessert, organisers say, where Supligen and Peanut Punch will be used in creations for the evening.

Worthy Park Estate is billed to provide rum, with cocktails served throughout the event, while Walkerswood will feature across the culinary experience.

Kuyah NY will not follow the format of a conventional sit-down dinner; instead, guests will

move between tasting stations, cocktails, desserts and music in an atmosphere organisers shared is intended to feel closer to a Jamaican gathering than a formal dining room.

“You can go anywhere in New York for a great dinner,” Bogues said. “Kuyah has to give you something different. We want you to taste Jamaica, hear Jamaica and feel Jamaica in the room.”