Chubby's Jamaican Kitchen — Restaurant in Toronto

The ackee and saltfish bites ($16 for 3, $3 for an extra piece) would make a great hors d’oeuvre. The fried dumpling base is like a fluffy biscuit topped with a mound of creamy ackee and saltfish spread studded with sweet peppers, onions, and tomatoes. It reminds me of a more fluid crab cake with a pop of freshness.

The pepper shrimp ($19) still knocked a fiery punch bringing on the scotch bonnet zing while swimming in garlic butter. The sauce seemed much thicker, so it really sticks to the seafood or acts as a dip for the crunchy bread.

I wish the kitchen had served the mixed green and mango salad ($17) with the shrimp (instead of with the mains) as it had a refreshing coolness that would have helped tame the spicy shrimp. Ultimately, it’s a salad, which was light on the mango but had some tropical flair from toasted coconut chips.

Oddly, the jerk pork ($24) was completely devoid of the spice and heat you’d expect and tasted like regular barbeque meat. If anything, my favourite part of the dish was the sauteed greens made from kale, collard greens, cherry tomato, and onion. It’s a side that would go great with anything.

As with the previous visit, Chubby’s saucier dishes continue to impress. While I would have liked more heat in the curry chicken ($19), it was nonetheless tender and flavourful, pairing well with the jasmine rice and pineapple chutney.

The gravy from the oxtail stew ($25) was also on point, and pairs well with side dishes like the rice and peas and as a dip for the fried okra ($11). The oxtail was a tad scant on the meat, but what was included was flavourful and tender. I could easily have an entire order of this to myself.

Chubby’s smartly leaves the fried plantain ($10.50) in large chunks, so they don’t dry out. They were the best plantains I’ve ever had, a slight crispiness outside yielding to the soft fruit, with a sprinkling of salt that enhanced its semi-sweetness.

In fact, with a scoop of coconut ice cream and a caramel drizzle, the fried plantains could even sub in for dessert. Consequently, much tastier than the cornmeal pudding ($12), which was too salty and had a non-existent ‘pudding’ element. If anything, the dessert was merely a piece of corn bread covered with fussy corn nuts and a scoop of mellow...

#ChubbysJamaicanKitchen is a Michelin Bib Gourmand classification (Michelin Star Honorable mention) so we knew it would be fantastic. And it was beyond expectations. We started with Chubby’s signature cocktails my husband ordered the potent #ChubbysRumPunch Wray & Nephew Overproof Rum, Appleton Signature Rum, Angostura, lime, nutmeg. It was tasty, sweet and powerful. I opted for the #WhiteBwoy Dillions 22 Unfiltered Gin, Lillet Blanc, white Vermouth, house-made ginger beer, lemon. It was nice and refreshing, not as sweet as my Husbands. We followed our servers advice for Our Appetizer as it is something that they eat in Jamaica for breakfast, not as fancy as ours but the essence of what they’d eat. #AckeeAndSaltfishBites Sweet peppers, onions, tomatoes, fried dumplings. They were fabulous and tasty. They were excellent with the sweet medium spice #mangoPepper sauce or the Hot #GuavaPepper sauce or even our crushed #ScotchBonnet peppers which we asked for from the kitchen, the server brought special for us because of our desire for spicy heat. For mains we ordered #JerkChicken half a Woodfire grilled, jerk marinated chicken. It came with a very tasty, not sweet, not creamy, #ChubbysSlaw it complimented the smoky jerk flavors well. And tamed the heat when we went to much Scotch bonnet chile. The other main was the #CurryGoat Chopped Goat, House-made curry spice, mango chutney; jasmine rice. It was lovely. We followed the servers suggestion of mixing in some scotch Bonnet to bring the heat up to a more authentic spice as with most places they serve it mild. We asked our server a lot of questions and she was so helpful and had the best advice. She enjoyed serving us as we love to be educated and we loved the knowledge and wisdom of her cultures food that she shared. I loved sitting above the kitchen so I could look down and see the wonderful food being grilled, the smell was intoxicating. I hope that Chubby’s Jamaican Kitchen gets a Michelin star in the future. But until they do we will enjoy...

Great food, flavor, service, atmosphere, & most importantly vegan friendly ✅ Highly recommend.

Detail review: 🍲 Food - HIGHLY RECOMMEND the chickpea & eggplant curry dish 🤩 It's vegan.

😋 Flavor - It was my first time trying Jamaican cuisine, so I didn't know what to expect. • The eggplant dish I got was splendid!! Like I finished the whole thing, no crumbs left kinda amazing! Perfect sweet & savory blend, crispy chickpeas, sweet squash! Wow. • The vegan jerk tempeh I got was okay. It was crumbled tempeh stirred in jerk sauce served with lime+yogurt side (this was not vegan so you can ommit this). It had a barbecue flavor, and was sticky in texture.

📄 Menu & vegan options available - Weekends, brunch menu till 3pm & lunch/dinner menu after 3pm. I have attached the brunch menu options in my pics. The brunch menu has very limited vegan options (1-2). SO, I recommend doing the after 3pm menu as that has a few more options (3-4).

🏠 Ambience - The place is stunning. They have an outdoor patio, indoor seating, and something upstairs. They have amazing music playing, the place is colorful, and overall a nice vibe.

💁🏻‍♀️Service - Our server was friendly, helpful, and overall efficienct. She was able to accommodate orders from 2 separate menus as we came at the in-between time & we wanted separate things from each.

💲Price - My dish was 19$ & the tempeh jerk side was 8$. I'd say this is within standard GTA food pricing range. Was the price:portion ratio good? I'd say so. It's a decently filling meal for 1 person.

🍹Drinks - They have a cocktail menu too which were rum based mostly. I was looking for more mango drinks options but only saw one. Hope they have more options the next time I visit 😊

Bottom line? A MUST visit place. I'll...