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Wednesday 5:30pm - 11pm Thursday 5:30pm - 11pm Friday 5:30pm - 12am Saturday 5:30pm - 12am

Island Social Club

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Island Social Club

A British Caribbean restaurant and bar in Hackney. Our specialities are roti and rum, while hosting Unearthing London’s Island subculture.

To be in the Caribbean is to live outside, to eat, to drink, to celebrate, to take the day as it comes. Open shirts, beads of sweat, cooking on open flames with sea and rum in the air. The promise of a new kind of living brought many Islanders to London. Awash with opportunity, this was to bring about a new kind of Caribbean...

We are Island Social Club. Island Social Club:
Rotishop
Pop's Kitchen
Rumshop
Everybody's

17/10/2022

ISC fam!!!!

It’s been a long while but we wanted to come on here to let you know - as though it might have been a little obvious by our silence - without clarity, who knows. Sadly, ISC is no more. We share this with sad and heavy hearts, we loved bringing buttery roti and lethal rum punches to London but the pandemic saw a pivot that even we weren’t expecting. Joe has been now making moves in tech, you can keep an eye and follow him here .roti.joe and Marie is writing a cookbook coming 2024, while hosting private events, supper clubs (soon come) and her her new project , launching soon. You can follow her . Please give a like, share, follow over on our pages, the ISC energy, ideas and ethos is still very much in our hearts and runs through all that we do.

We wanted to say a ridiculously big thank you to everyone who came with us on the journey. The staff, who we wouldn’t have been able to function without! The customers, who we wouldn’t have even able to pay the staff without. The community, who we wouldn’t have bothered doing this without. It was beautiful while it lasted, and we hope to see you supporting our other projects in the future. Who knows, maybe one day ISC might be beating roti again, but for now, we’ll see you soon.

It’s been beautiful…

Love Marie and Joe

X

18/12/2019

Sorry we kept you waiting 😯... but it's here. We're having a New Years shubz to see the year off properly! All the dollar bills raised will be going to our soon to launch crowdfunding campaign! We said it would be worth it. That good good roti on the regs, now who wouldn't want that?

Get your tickets here https://buff.ly/2OwxXt4

11/12/2019

IT'S BEEN A YEAR!!! ISC friends & fam, the time has come for us to leave our Haggerston home and start sharing and preparing our plans for 2020. We cannot express how thankful we are to have had you come on this mad journey with us. ISC team old and new, our family, our friends, our regulars, our one timers, our no timers - all of you have informed and continue to inform the journey. We're planning a little goodbye shubz (how could we not?!), so keep your eyes peeled tomorrow and in the meantime, come and get the last of your roti fixes before we take a little break and plot for the future. Last service will be Saturday 21st December!

WE LOVE YOU!

Marie & Joe

24/10/2019

A delayed thank you to for inviting us to last weeks awards. What a night! A huge congratulations to all the winners, with a special mention to who are old friends - well deserved and wonderful to bump into you!!!

The food was delicious, the company even better (we genuinely socialised with people, a rarity these days as we’re often working), and there might have been a tipple or two. That might be the reason why it’s taken us a week to write this. BUT better late than never.

To all involved, thank you 🙏🏾 ✨

21/10/2019

The restaurant will be closed this Thursday for episode 3 of Nyamming - Grounding, our collaborative supperclub series, this time collaborating with Denai Moore of . Come and explore Ital, a plant-based living philosophy from Rastafarianism where guests will enjoy a vegan menu with optional drinks pairing and a night of stimulating conversation about vegan Jamaican food culture, Rastafarianism and incorporating sustainability in our everyday lives.

Taken from the word vital, italism is a belief in the life-giving properties of food, with people eating to maintain a diet of high-vibration foods. Depending on how it is observed, this can mean eating a raw or vegan diet, though some might also consume fish. High-vibration (unprocessed) foods are believed to stimulate a person’s livity (life force) while low-vibration foods drain energy.

At Nyamming 3: Grounding, we will explore the idea that how we consume can affect how we live both physically in our own bodies and within a community. We hope to see you there! An evening of conversation, good food, good drink and joy.

Tickets via the website.

16/10/2019

Jamie Oliver visited Island Social Club to find out about our exploration of Ital cuisine and Rasta culture - Nyamming 3: Grounding! Tickets now on Sale.

14/10/2019

We are incredibly excited to share that we’ll be on Jamie’s Meat Free Meal’s tonight on Channel 4 🤭🔥 at 8pm. We’ve had to keep this quiet for a while but it was amazing to work with the wonderful on this, while highlighting modern approaches to Caribbean cooking and discussing this with . Exploring bold unapologetic Caribbean flavours married with delicious vegetables.

Episode 3 of our Nyamming supper club, ‘Grounding’, will be exploring some of the themes discussed in tonight’s episode with greater depth and investigation with the menu exploring Ital and Rastafarianism. An evening of discussion and exploration with delicious food and drinks.

Tickets via our website.

09/10/2019

Deani Moore of is a vegan Jamican chef creating innovative vegan dishes with authentic Jamaican flavours. We wanted to work with Denai to explore her unique and modern approach to Jamican cooking to highlight the new era of Caribbean chefs in London. Ticket link via our website.

08/10/2019

We are excited to share that Nyamming is back - with episode 3: Grounding (after a little postponement). We're collaborating with the amazing Denai Moore of on Thursday 24th October at ISC.

Grounding’ – will be an evening of plant-based dishes inspired by the Ital* practice, a philosophy derived from Rastafarianism. Marie and Denai have devised a four course menu that echoes the Ital belief system and salutes sustainability in its purest form. Each dish will ignite conversation and dispel myths of Rastafarianism, while highlighting it’s history of plant-based living that was in existence long before 21st century ‘veganism’.

The four course dinner will be accompanied by discussion and debate, connecting us back to the food we eat with dishes formed from British seasonality and Caribbean flavours. Each course is designed to guide our understanding of the Ital way and how it can influence our appetites today. Learning about high and low-vibration foods, how to live simply through gaining an understanding, appreciation and connection to the food you eat.

Ticket are priced from £45 with four courses and a welcome cocktail. https://buff.ly/2OwxXt4

07/10/2019

The origins of Notting Hill Carnival differ depending on who you speak to. Whether it was started, in direct defiance of racist lynch mobs in Notting Hill, by Claudia Jones, or as a West London community street party by Rhaune Laslett, NHC is the coming together of community through a traditional Caribbean ritual.

Carnival from it’s creation has always been for disenfranchised people, a way of expressing collective strength against a ruling class. This is why there has always been tension with the police, who represent a hostile authority. The carnival streets for one day, are by definition, unruled. In London, where the black community has always been over-policed, Carnival can feel like an oxymoron with an ever increasing state presence.

In Grenada, there is a collective understanding of the event. There is hardly any police presence and because there is no curfew a feeling of freedom washes over you throughout the days.

Notting Hill Carnival has become too big, too broad and too branded. There have been some very questionable funding decisions and the power balance seems off. We need those that attend to attend with purpose; arts and community funding to replace the big branding, less homogenised ‘black’ music (and needless to say techno), and all that detracts from the idea of community through Caribbean ritual. With these changes, we could hope for fewer police and road blockages, less bottlenecking for the floats, fewer drugs and a better collective understanding of the importance of unity that Carnival represents.

Photo credit: Giles Moberly

04/10/2019

Shortknee is a pluming explosion of colour and judgement. 30-50 masqueraders wear up to five beautifully clashing patterned silky fabrics, serving hypnotic clown chic. The ballooning costume derives from Grenada’s French occupation and is a form of Pierrot, the comedic 'delle’arte' from 17th Century Italy. Shortknee doesn’t stop at Europe within it's cultural references. Tiny mirrors adorn the entire outfit, worn to reflect the masqueraders enemies and protect them from tormentors. A mythology that is inherited from West African diviners.

The Shortknee view carnival as a social ritual, a place where the bonds of society are strengthened. They out wrong doers with songs and douse their fellows in talcum powder. However, they will also ask you for ‘a little something’ and refusal is a serious breech of social and spiritual protocols. Punishment these days may be a thrashing with their long pantalooned sleeves!

At the time Joe had little idea of Shortknee’s fascinating references. The is a band we would love to play mad with one day!

"Mama doh bawl, doh bawl mama doh bawl....Tell Chantimelle (a rival village) is one for the jail and on for the cemetery." A chant that one starts and the crowd then joins in with.

03/10/2019

Carnival is traditionally made up of many different mas bands. Each of these have their own way of 'playing mas'. As Joe lined the street for Pretty Mas he witnessed the first of two amazing displays of Grenadian history. These bands used performance and costume to dazzle the crowds, seeing within each movement and colourful reflection a story of the past.

The first was 'Vieux Corps', the Mas of Disguise: dark, ghostly... silent. A word which literally means 'dead body'. The name coming from Grenada’s French ancestry, having been a French slave colony from 1650 to 1775 and 1779 to 1783.

The masquerader is concealed by a mask made from wire mesh, to signify their ancestors loss of identity, status and complete invisibility. Heavy clogs made from the wood of the mango tree are worn on the feet, while heavy chains drag metal objects along the floor forming the rhythm by which the band moves.

This band is what carnival is all about, artistry of storytelling, intense choreography, historical context, percussion and energy. An absolute highlight.

Address

258 Kingsland Road
London
E84DG

Opening Hours

Wednesday	5:30pm - 11pm
Thursday	5:30pm - 11pm
Friday	5:30pm - 12am
Saturday	5:30pm - 12am

Website

http://islandsocialclub.com/

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