The People Behind the Plates

Devon grew up in Portmore, St. Catherine, watching his mother run a roadside jerk stand on weekends. He moved to Miami in 2006, worked kitchens across the city for eight years, and opened Kingston Catch in 2014 with a mortgage on the drum before the lease on the building.

He still tends the jerk drum himself most Fridays and Saturdays, because — in his words — "you can teach a man to season, you can't teach him to wait."

Paulette runs the kitchen line and the front counter, and she's the reason the rice and peas never varies from one week to the next. She learned to cook from her grandmother in Manchester Parish and brought three of her recipes straight onto the opening menu, unchanged.

If she tells you to order the festival, order the festival.