Ten years ago, a small Caribbean restaurant opened its doors on Cowley Road. This year, Spiced Roots celebrates its tenth anniversary, and Oxford has every reason to join the party. In that decade, it has given the city warm welcomes, packed evenings of music and rum, a home for its Caribbean community, and, not least, an octopus salad I have not stopped thinking about since.
Ask yourself when you last went to a Caribbean restaurant. Now consider when you last went to a French or an Italian one. For most of us, the latter comes far more easily, and that is a shame, because Spiced Roots is one of a kind. There is nothing else quite like it in Oxford, and a meal here makes a joyful case for why Caribbean food should take its place among the cuisines we ordinarily celebrate most.
Its success is no accident. Since opening in 2016, Spiced Roots has taken the overall prize at the Oxinabox Food Awards and become one of the city’s most cherished independent restaurants. Its owner speaks about it with infectious pride. The name honours his heritage, and he wants the restaurant to be a hub for people, as well as a place to share his culture.
What is striking is how little credit he will take for any of it. He sees himself not as the author of his menu, but as the custodian of recipes long shared communally in Trinidad and handed down through his own family, in which his grandmother cooked and his aunt catered. “It’s not innovative,” he insists – rather, it is authentic and cooked the way it is supposed to be. Time spent across the islands explains why the menu celebrates the whole Caribbean, instead of just one corner of it.
The experience starts the moment you arrive. We were welcomed with a hibiscus ginger beer, and every drink that followed matched its quality. The homemade ginger beer was unlike any other I have ever tasted – sweet yet startlingly fresh. Rum lovers are spoiled here too: the bar holds well over 100 sipping rums, and the team runs masterclasses for anyone who suspects, rightly, that rum deserves the reverence we usually save for cognac.
My friend and I shared a Kingfish Steak (£19.50) and the Boneless Curry Goat (£20.50). The Kingfish was extraordinary, with bold, beautifully judged flavours. The Curry Goat, marinated for 48 hours and cooked in goat bone stock with curry leaves, coconut milk, carrots, and potatoes, was hearty and warming in a way that felt almost familial, as though it had been made with care for generations. Both portions were generous, as were the doubles (£6.95): piled with chickpeas cooked with garlic, cumin, and curry leaf, finished with cucumber, tamarind, and hot sauce.
Then came the Grilled Octopus Salad (£8.95), the dish that made the evening. The octopus is steamed, marinated in garlic, coriander, Scotch bonnet, and lemon, then finished on the grill and served over avocado, baby leaves, cucumber, and tomato beneath a bright pineapple chow. It arrived beautifully presented and tasted vividly fresh. It was the best dish of the night, the best I have eaten in Oxford, and genuinely one of the best things I have ever eaten.
Yet the food is only part of the joy. The staff are kind and hospitable, plainly delighted to see you and proud of what they serve, and that warmth is why people keep coming back. Spiced Roots works as well for a single drink as for a full dinner, and the team caters for larger events too. Its calendar is a celebration in itself, with live music, Saturday sip-and-paint evenings, and cocktail-making sessions.
Above all, Spiced Roots is a sanctuary for the wider community, and especially for Caribbean people in Oxford. It is a place to connect with heritage: the owner grew up in the Caribbean, and he wants those in the diaspora to reconnect with their roots. The restaurant works in partnership with the Oxford African and Caribbean Society and, most significantly, is involved in the Cowley Road Carnival, where town and gown come together. We, as a community, have an obligation to support the sanctuaries of Oxford, and few are as worth celebrating as this one.
Ten years in, Spiced Roots is looking firmly ahead: to the carnival, to its work with charities, and to making the restaurant a place where Caribbean history is learned, as well as tasted. Visiting is about far more than trying something new. This is a restaurant whose impeccable food is somehow the least impressive thing about it. It has given Oxford a great deal, and the next ten years promise even more. The argument is settled: Caribbean food belongs at the very top of Oxford’s table, and so does Spiced Roots.
