Restaurants

By Chris Moss

'The food is lovely,' a woman whispered to me as we went into this new Caribbean restaurant ten minutes' walk from Clapham Junction. Either she was cunningly planted there by the owners, or she just needed to tell someone how good her dinner had been - but as a welcome, it worked.

Things got even better when the maître d' greeted us wearing a flamboyant Trinidadian carnival headdress and told us we needed a drink. After we had sampled a couple of weakish rum punches - sweeter than Tizer, they go down like pop - the starters arrived. Succulent chicken wings came drenched in the house condiment - ACE Sauce - which was a hot, peppery jerk concoction. A saucer of yam balls was more forage than flavour but helped soak up some of the heat.

ACE stands for African-Caribbean-English, but as we hadn't come here for sirloin steak or sausage and mash for mains we tried the Jamaican classics of jerk chicken and ackee (a fruit with a texture similar to scrambled egg) and saltfish. Both were delicious, with strong, fresh flavours and skilful seasoning. The chef, Rupert, is Jamaican and used to turn out these dishes in their thousands on the QE2, so the restaurant gives him an excuse to fine-tune his talents.

Coleslaw and fried plantain were dry, cool complementary side dishes. We went indigenous for a dessert, and the apple crumble was moist and not murdered by sugar. With a soundtrack of quiet jazz-funk, fast and chatty staff, and a clean, airy interior, ACE Fusion could potentially pick up business from locals bored by pasta, pizza and vague international fare.

Time Out Issue 1966: April 24-30