Rudie's is set for expansion in the New Year amid Caribbean restaurant boom

Jamaican casual restaurant brand Rudie’s is doubling up in the new year, when it will open its second site in a unit at Shoreditch’s Boxpark.

Opening on 15 January, the new 30-cover restaurant will be the second East London site for the brand, which was founded in Dalston two years ago.

The new restaurant will have a new menu, featuring tapas style dishes of the flagship’s favourites including jerk chicken; curry goat; and the ‘boss burger’.

The brand will serve its roti wraps, filled with a choice of curry goat; jerk chicken; jerk pork; callalloo; and mushroom.

The brand is targeting the area’s working lunch crowd with a new selection of grab’n’go lunch dishes, with ‘boxfood’ options like the Jerk-It-Up box (jerk chicken with sweet potato, rice’n’peas or chow chow slaw); Hellshire Beach (king prawns sautéed in pepper sauce, served with avocado salsa and fried bammy); and Ital Vital, a vegan box (plantain with Appleton rum sauce, sweet potatoes and chow chow slaw).

A drinks menu will include Jamaican soft drinks and juices, rums and classic ‘punches’ like rum, Guinness and peanut.

The number of Caribbean and Jamaican restaurants in the UK has boomed in recent years. Turtle Bay, a casual Caribbean brand, operates nearly 40 sites and smaller operators such as Sugar Dumplin, The Rum Kitchen and Cottons have their sights set on expansion.