I’m not one to believe in fate, but The Drop Bar Café came to me like a dream. One sunny afternoon when I’d moved to Manchester only days earlier, there was a knock at the door. It was a delivery from The Drop Bar Café that I hadn’t ordered. I phoned them and was told the customer had accidentally ordered it to his old address, “but just keep it, dude. Enjoy.”
In a brand new city, life still in boxes, The Drop’s delivery suddenly felt like a welcome-to-the-neighbourhood gift from the universe. And luckily for me, whoever placed the order had gone for two of the restaurant’s legendary Drop Boxes – which meant I got to try a lot of different dishes on that fateful afternoon.
The Drop is the passion project of Head Chef, Jim Gill. Growing up, his dad taught him how to roast, grind and use spices, while his mum taught him how to cook their homegrown vegetables as soon as he could reach the kitchen counter. It seems a career in food was always set in the stars, and after 15 years of working on Manchester’s restaurant scene, Jim created The Drop Bar Café, pairing traditional Caribbean cooking with modern techniques to achieve Island restaurant food with masses of flair and flavour.
What I love about Caribbean cuisine is the contradictions that complement each other perfectly. Dishes are hot and punchy while gentle and mellow. Expertly blended herbs, spices and roots mean the flavours are massive, yet still delicate. Serious hits of chilli meet cool, creamy coconut, and colourful vegetables simmer in comforting stews and rich pan gravy, giving exotic ingredients a warming homeliness—and in Manchester, anything that respects the art of good gravy gets a knowing nod of approval.
The Drop’s six-stage Jamaican Jerk Chicken sits centre stage on its menu, and starts with a secret spice mix and marinade. The chicken’s flame-grilled the traditional way over coal, basted twice, flung in the oven to cook through, and returned to the grill to crisp up with one final layer of jerk basting sauce, finished with chicken pan gravy, mango and coriander.
The chicken stew with dumplings is another fine favourite. Chicken sealed in the pan, fried up with garlic, chilli and ginger, slow-cooked with tomatoes, peppers and carrots in coconut milk, infused with bay and thyme. And the dumplings take it to the next level; stodgy, sticky, sponginess that soaks up all of the rich, fragrant sauce.
You’ve also got the curried goat, an Indo-Jamaican one-pot wonder that promises to “knock your socks off!” It’s a sunny yellow dish, slow-cooked on the bone with turmeric and madras curry powder and finished with mint-cucumber yogurt, pomegranate and coriander. Or the ackee and saltfish (Jamaica’s national dish): salted cod sautéed with ackee, onions, tomatoes, garlic, thyme, black pepper and pimento, finished with dill. And small plates and sides include: coconut rice and peas, fried plantain, steamed sweet potato, mango salsa with cucumber, lime and mint, and a scotch bonnet papaya mayo.
The Caribbean cocktails also capture the spirit of fun in the sun like nothing else. Sip on The Drop’s signature rum-laced passionfruit Zombie, drink tropical delights from a hollowed-out pineapple, or share a Celebration Watermelon Mojito—served in half a watermelon, complete with a huge sparkler for drama.
All in all, The Drop captures the Caribbean spirit that we know and love – bags of big personality and attitude, but with an effortless cool - and serves up food that feeds your soul and fills it with sunshine.