Jamaican restaurant Bigga Taste just opened up in Montreal’s NDG. Owner Andrea Rhoden says Caribbean food here isn’t as common to find and locals can’t seem to get enough.
Rhoden associates being Jamaican with doing a lot of cooking.
“Being around my aunt, being around my mom when we migrated here, we’re always cooking family dinner as a must, so we’re always in the kitchen, and so this is how it all started,” Rhoden said.
Rhoden believes in good-tasting, quality food, and she believes that’s the key to bringing customers through her doors.
While there are a few West Indian restaurants around, Bigga Taste is the only one on Sherbrooke Street.
“It feels great and the people are really, really gravitating,” Rhoden said.
She got her start feeding Montrealers, long before her restaurant opened its doors.
“I’ve always liked cooking and I started doing events, I started making natural juices, walking the streets with my husband, we started selling juices and then eventually we started doing events like Jamaica Day, carnivals, and then I started really getting big because the food is really good and then I just continued just diving in.”
Rhoden immigrated to Montreal with her family in 1989 when she was only 12 years old.
“It was hard at first. Migrating here with the French situation was difficult at first but then we started getting into it and we had to adapt quickly because we didn’t have a choice and then you know growing up as an adult we started to see the different opportunities which were really, really good and much better for us.”
Rhoden wants Montrealers to get a taste of her Jamaican culture.
“They should come because the food is extremely good. I am a very, I would say close to being like authentic Jamaican cuisine. I am a born Jamaican, it’s instilled in me, I am not cooking something that I don’t know. I am actually cooking what I know and so they should come because I believe in quality food, good food and I like when people leave with a smile on their faces. They should all come.
“Just get to know us and then they’ll see don’t judge a book by its cover. We’re actually very good people. So come on meet me, come out, meet Andrea from Jamaica.”
As for what she recommends someone try if they have never eaten Jamaican food, the answer is clear: “Jerk chicken. It’s just really nice, it’s a nice smoky taste to it and it is a staple in Jamaica. Everywhere you go you have jerk chicken and jerk pork and I actually have the, it’s called a drum, like a drum that we do it on with the coal and I still do it to this day.”
