THE FLAVORS OF THE CARIBBEAN—electric Scotch bonnet chilies, richly spiced curries, floral ginger, and tangy and sour fruit and citrus—are having a moment in the American South. These flavors have long been whispered through the region. But today they’re speaking with clarity and confidence, showing up in strip-mall storefronts, on white tablecloths, and in the hands of chefs who embody the deep, tangled lineage between these two places.
The current Caribbean moment is really something older finally coming into focus. For generations, Southern food harkened back to West Africa—okra, stewed greens, rice, smoked and braised meats. But the full story also courses through the Caribbean, where many enslaved Africans were taken before being forced into the South and across the Americas. That history isn’t a footnote—it’s a backbone that further links the Caribbean to the forming of this nation.
Which is why it makes sense that Caribbean flavors feel instantly familiar here. Cornbread and grits echo Caribbean cornmeal breads and staples like fufu—pounded starches typically served with savory sauces and soups. Gumbos carry the imprint of African okra dishes and hearty Caribbean stews, while braised oxtail, simmered greens, smoked meats, and coconut rice further reveal how intertwined these cultures are.
Today, the shared language of these regions is being boldly expressed by a growing wave of chefs and creators whose roots span the island region. These tastemakers are tapping into family traditions, culinary training, and the growing cultural influence of the South to build cuisines that are vibrant and distinctly diasporic.
Nina Compton
New Orleans and Saint Lucia
If any Southern city embodies the Caribbean South, it’s New Orleans. And the chef at the center of its modern Caribbean voice is Nina Compton of Compère Lapin and Nina’s Creole Cottage.
A Saint Lucian native, Top Chef alum, and James Beard Award winner, Compton has watched the region’s perception of Caribbean food shift dramatically.
“We’re getting a moment—not just as a roti shop or quick sit-down,” she says. “People are opening restaurants that showcase beautiful rums, thoughtful menus.”
In New Orleans, Caribbean flavors meet Southern soul in ways that feel inevitable. “Because of the slave trade, there’s a direct connection,” Compton explains. “Okra, greens, black-eyed peas…those ingredients hit in a particular way.”
The cuisine of her island is fun, approachable, and above all, seasonal. It’s humble cooking that’s often misunderstood by tourists who instead imagine grilled fish topped with tropical fruit salsa. And like the American South, Saint Lucia has always been “farm to table,” long before the phrase became trendy.
“Roadside vendors, farmers markets, fish- ermen selling what they catch that day—that’s just normal. Most people have a fruit tree in their yard: custard apples, star fruit, pineapples, guineps, coconuts, bananas, cacao. Coffee grows in the cooler, mountainous parts. Nothing mass-produced, just small lots of land. That’s the flavor of home,” she says.
At her restaurants, Compton folds those tradi- tions into her signature style of cooking. Her beef cheek cottage pie with green fig (unripe banana) instead of potato is a quiet nod to African influ- ence. She introduces diners to conch, dasheen, sea-moss drinks, ginger-lemongrass teas, and black cake dense with rum.
“Caribbean cuisine isn’t one thing,” she says. “It’s a whole world.”
Alain Lemaire
South Florida and Haiti
Florida remains the most Caribbean of Southern States. Especially a mini Caribbean, the proximity and subsequently similar climate have made it a haven for generations of Caribbean communities from across the islands. That’s where Haitian-born chef Alain Lemaire runs a catering company, Sensory Delights, and his private chef/supper club-style project, Ou Manje Deja? (That’s Haitian-Creole for “have you eaten yet?”)
Lemaire describes his cooking as “world cuisine,” but whenever he’s given creative direction, he reaches back to Haiti. “Fresh and in your face,” he says.
His flavor building is meticulous. He leans on cloves, Scotch bonnet, thyme, garlic, epis (Haiti’s style of mirepoix using garlic, peppers, and fresh herbs), and the deep pantry of an island shaped by African, European, and Indigenous influences. “It’s never one dimension,” he says. “Caribbean cuisine is a multiverse of flavors. People take a bite and can’t pick out one specific note. It’s explosive but balanced.”
Lemaire’s creativity shows most vividly in his dinner series, where he reimagines Haitian staples using classical technique. He might turn djondjon (a native Haitian black mushroom) into a creamy pasta or risotto, swap smoked herring for anchovies in a caesar dressing, or update pork griot using belly instead of shoulder. His pikliz uses red cabbage “for extra pop,” and he even repurposes its vinegar for glazes finished under high heat.
“There’s this idea that Caribbean countries are all tropical fruit and tiki huts,” he says. “Food can correct that misconception. We know fine dining; we know technique.”
And diners, he notes, are increasingly curious. “People used to ask, ‘Is Haitian food spicy?’ Not necessarily. It’s the layers of flavor. The richness. And now folks are more open—they realize Caribbean isn’t just jerk or curry,” he says, echoing Compton. There’s a whole world here.”
For now, he’s happy to let his food do the talking—and the teaching. “The best reaction is when someone says, ‘I’ve only had jerk before.’ Then they try my food and see what Caribbean cuisine really is,” he says. “That moment of discovery—that’s why I do this.”
Shaun Brian
Charleston and Saint John
Charleston’s rise as one of the country’s pre- mier food cities didn’t happen by chance. Its Gullah Geechee roots run deep, and so do its Caribbean ties. For chef and sustainable-seafood evangelist Shaun Brian, those ties run straight back to Saint John, where he grew up in a life that was rugged yet enchanted. “It was beautiful, yes—but also scrappy,” he says. His family lived in a two-person tent on a platform near Coral Bay Harbor. “No bathrooms—you dug a hole. Solar panels, cistern water. We built everything ourselves.”
That resourcefulness—the rhythm of living close to land and sea—shaped him. He grew up on callaloo simmered with pig tails, salt fish, pâtés, and whole fried fish. He worked in a lumberyard at nine and learned early that food was both sustenance and identity.
“Saint Thomas and Saint John are culturally at the center of the Caribbean,” he says. “When I came to Charleston, hearing Gullah felt like home.”
He cooked up and down the East Coast after studying at Johnson & Wales, including back home in the US Virgin Islands and on Martha’s Vineyard. But when he got to Charleston, his background and training clicked: He cofounded CudaCo. Seafood House as a revived sea- food market and restaurant on James Island. Putting his building skills to use, he and his team gutted the space, salvaged artifacts from the property, cleaned the creek behind it, and built a market that feels both modern and rooted in local culture.
His fried fish sandwich is a perfect example of his layered identity: part culinary training, part affection for the abundance of flounder in Charleston’s waters, part nostalgia for the Filet-O-Fish. But beneath that playfulness is deep conviction.
“Charleston calls itself a seafood town, but most chefs are held captive by a few purveyors,” he explains. “I wanted transparent sourcing, fair pay, and chef-driven seafood— approachable, not smug.”
He buys from local fishermen, butchers on- site, and mentors his team with an emphasis on humility. Next up is an exciting expansion—the CudaCo. Deck House: a raw bar and coastal wine- and-beer bar scheduled to open in early 2026. He’s going for an “island-to-table” approach—crudos and ceviches alongside cassava finished with but- ter and pickled red onion in the Dominican style: bright, acidic, mouthwatering. The new space will be small and elegant, with oyster roast stations and weathered floorboards honoring the water- men who worked the property long before him.
For Brian, the cultures of the Lowcountry and the Caribbean are enmeshed, as much through history as through foodways and the cadence of daily life. He grows purple sugarcane on James Island, forages wild cassava and prickly pear, and cooks through the diasporic flavors that de- fined him. “Charleston has so much Caribbean DNA,” he says. “It feels familiar.”
Hector Garate
Charleston and Puerto Rico
Although Caribbean cuisine is often closely associated with seafood, rich dark-meat stews and roasted whole pig are also abundant and important staples. While the flavors of Shaun Brian’s hometown in the US Virgin Islands are a polyphonic chorus of cultural diversity, Puerto Rico’s specific influences informed chef Hector Garate’s distinct and explosive flavor profile.
Garate arrived from Puerto Rico at 14, unable to speak English or find the flavors that shaped him. He had grown up in El Trópico, his father’s restaurant in Puerto Rico, where comida criolla (as Puerto Rican soul food is commonly called) was less cuisine than a way of life: sofrito-laced stews, punchy citrus marinades, smoky meats.
“Not having the food, the people, the music—it was a drastic change,” he says.
He dabbled in culinary school and cooked in New York kitchens before coming back to the Carolinas, then found his moment during the pandemic while smoking meat in his backyard. What emerged was Palmira—barbecue that looks familiar but tastes like home.
His lane was clear from the start: open fire, deep smoke, and bold Puerto Rican flavors. He developed custom rubs from adobo and sazón seasoning, as well as oregano and the bright acidity of sour orange. His whole hog barbecue first gets rubbed down with that seasoning, then it’s roasted—always skin-side down—before being bathed in sofrito: Puerto Rico’s iconic and distinct blend of peppers, onion, garlic, and cilantro. He also put his stamp on a Southern classic: mac and cheese seasoned with confit garlic and housemade sazón seasoning.
“People underestimate what the Caribbean has to offer,” he says. “They taste our food and realize—this is barbecue, too.”
Barbecue is arguably one of the South’s most famous culinary exports, capturing the attention of people across the world. But for Puerto Ricans, it’s a particular point of pride, because the word barbecue is derived from the Indigenous Taíno barabicu—referring to a platform set over an open fire for smoking.
Garate planted his Puerto Rican flag in craft barbecue—literally and figuratively. And the world has noticed. He’s cooked hogs in London with global pitmasters, become Yeti’s first Puerto Rican ambassador, and earned nods from Texas Monthly, Esquire, James Beard, and more. But his success is most deeply rooted at home: his mother works with him; his father stops in; the restaurant walls hold notes from the restaurant’s namesake, his great-grandmother Palmira, who lived to 103.
“It’s my DNA. It’s what I’m proud to share,” he says.
Tristan Epps
Houston and Trinidad
In Houston—a city emerging as one of the most exciting food destinations in the region—Top Chef Season 22 winner Tristen Epps is connecting the Caribbean to the world.
He’s been working in kitchens since he was 16, but the story his food tells was built over a lifetime. Born to a Trinidadian mother who was in the military and raised him on military bases across the globe, he didn’t always have a strong affinity for Caribbean flavors.
“My Trinidadian heritage was plentiful, but it felt far from me,” he says. Holidays meant aunties, curry, and the rhythm of island kitchens; everyday life meant convenience cooking with a single mom in the military. That duality— Trinidadian on one side, American on the other— followed him into culinary school, where he quickly noticed what wasn’t being taught.
“I never saw Trinidadian food in books, magazines, or restaurants,” he says. “If I didn’t see it, I figured it must not be good enough.” Still, wherever he lived he found himself hunting for Trini staples like roti and curry goat—until one day he stopped searching and started cooking. That’s when the technique he’d trained in—French sauces, precise cuts, classic mirepoix— met the layered, slow-built foundations of Trinidad. “Everyone has a sofrito,” he says. “Africa, the Caribbean—these flavor bases aren’t quick. You wash meat with lime, season it with green seasoning, build broth with sour orange, garlic, thyme, scotch bonnet, allspice. Then you burn sugar—that’s another whole layer.”
This layering, which is essential to dishes across the Caribbean, is what makes the cuisine so sophisticated and dynamic. He’s watched Caribbean cuisine quietly boom across the South and also marvels at the increased availability of once hard-to-find ingredients like cassava, taro, whole coconuts, and starfruit. “Southerners are realizing how similar Caribbean food is to their own,” he says. “The door’s unlocked. The ingredients are here.”
Between restaurant plans, collaborations from Miami to LA, private events, and festivals, his mis- sion stays constant: expanding the conversation around Caribbean food. And his favorite moments are those flashes of recognition from diners who realize they already know these flavors.
“I love the aha moment,” Epps says. “You’ve had this food your whole life—you just didn’t know to call it Caribbean.”
keep reading
On the Road
Charleston
The darling of Southern food, Charleston brims with award-winning restaurants and chefs. Recently, Lowcountry […]
On the Road
Houston
Houston brims with culture and cuisine. From breakfast to barbecue and Tex-Mex galore, work […]
On the Road
New Orleans
From Bourbon Street to bánh mì, there’s a lot to love about the Crescent […]
