Getting your Trinity Audio player ready… For a long time, the conversation around Caribbean cuisine in fine dining moved slowly, if it moved at all.
Executive chef and restaurateur Lonie Murdock is part of why that is finally changing. She grew up between her Jamaican mother’s kitchen and her Canadian father’s table, learning early that food was the one place her two cultures actually met. Decades later, that education is the entire foundation of Isla, the restaurant she and her husband Darren Hinds opened last October in the heart of Washington D.C., and the most personal project of her career.
That shows up in everything on the menu, from the passionfruit ponzu brightening the snapper to the green mango kuchela jus anchoring the pork chop. But nothing tells her story quite like the pumpkin gnocchi. She makes it by hand, pulling it somewhere between a West Indian spinner and an Italian classic, then finishes it with coconut ricotta cream and a jerk beef ragu built from her grandmother Edna’s recipe, one Edna guarded for as long as she lived. “I wish she could be here to see this,” Murdock says.
“The contrast between the two cultures I grew up with shaped how I move through life and how I connect with people through food,” she says. “It taught me that our upbringing can sometimes separate us, but it can also be the very thing that brings us together in a deeply personal way.”
Before D.C., there was Toronto, where Murdock and Hinds built We Shall Hospitality and its beloved Miss Likklemore’s, a Caribbean-inspired restaurant that started as a pop-up in 2020 before finding a permanent home. The couple had long wanted to take their work beyond Canada, and at one point came close to signing a lease in Miami, until Hinds made a detour to Washington on a business trip and called his wife with an idea. She got on a plane. “During that trip, we walked the city, dined at a few places and looked at potential locations, and I was sold,” she says. “DC felt like a place where I could live and truly be myself. There is an energy in cities like Miami and New York, but for me it was more about where I felt most at home. And DC gave me that feeling.”
That instinct for home is what Murdock poured into Isla’s design. The restaurant covers more than 8,000 square feet and Murdock was involved in every decision during its creation, from the copper trim on the tables to the piping on the bar stools to the color of the ceiling, working alongside design firm Solid Design Creative to make the space feel as considered as the food. She wanted the room to do something to you before you even sat down. “None of those things are loud on their own,” she says, “but together they create a feeling. It’s the little things, the ones you cannot quite name, that make a place feel special.”
Murdock grew up watching Caribbean food get celebrated everywhere except the places that were supposed to matter most—a reality a lot of chefs have had to navigate for years. “I’m excited to see Caribbean people, our ingredients, our food and our talent being recognized on a global stage,” she says. “For a long time, there was a fear that creativity around our food might be seen as a departure from culture. But in reality, it comes from a deep respect and love for it. Now, at Isla, I’m seeing diners from all walks of life connect with both the familiarity and the evolution of our cuisine. That is really powerful.”
Building something at this scale, as a self-taught woman without Michelin stars or James Beard recognition to open doors, has required Murdock to fight for her seat at the table in ways that many of her peers simply have not had to. “I have been called passionate, emotional and opinionated, when in reality I was confident in my vision and unwilling to let it be diminished,” she says. “What keeps me going is seeing those hard moments turn into something beautiful, a great service, an incredible dish, a full room. It fuels me and pushes me to stand even stronger in who I am.”
The women who shaped her are not hard to trace. Her grandmother raised Murdock’s mother on her own in New York after her grandfather passed, and her mother, Judy Murdock, one of the film industry’s top makeup artists, showed her what it looked like to build something extraordinary in what many would consider a second chapter. In the culinary world, she looks to Edna Lewis and to chefs like Fariyal Abdullahi and Brittney Williams, women she says demonstrate “there’s strength in staying rooted in who you are while exploring and evolving.” She cheers for all of them, loudly and without reservation.
For Murdock, the success of Isla was never just about Isla. “I hope my success helps make it easier for the next generation to access funding, secure great locations, build partnerships and be taken seriously from the start,” she says. “Our time is now, and I hope ISLA is just the beginning.” And if Isla is any indication, she won’t be the last.
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