From Bob to Bolt, coffee to rum, The Rock and its people continue to make favourable impressions on the world stage. Add Rock-native Jennefier Ewers to those flying the black, gold and green high and winning over fans with her culinary talents. Ewers’ Brooklyn-based restaurant, Fisherman’s Dawta, which she operates with her daughter Kamilah Warmington and which opened last summer, was recently the subject of a generous profile in The New York Times food pages earlier this month.

The esteemed newspaper’s review of the mother-daughter eatery, headlined ‘The Food Is Hot; The Mood Is Cool’ and written by Ligaya Mishan, noted: “‘Migladteseeyou!’ is the greeting on the chalkboard menu by the counter. Behind it, Jennefier Ewers takes orders and cooks, sometimes singing along with Bob Marley. Don’t expect speed. There is only one of her. Settle out back, where steps lead to an archetypal oasis of weathered planks, leafy trees and turquoise umbrellas. Time expands. All will come.”

Ewers, the reviewer noted, operated a more formal restaurant, Brawta, a block away from her current eatery. “When it closed in 2009, after 18 years, Ms Ewers returned to her native Jamaica for what proved, fortunately for us New Yorkers, a brief retirement,” Mishan said.

The New York Times food critic was complimentary about Brawta’s jerked chicken, oxtail and bammy dishes.

Of Ewers’ take on the world-famous jerk, the eloquent reviewer said: “A constant [dish] is jerk chicken, the skin blackened and shining. First there is the coy sweetness, half disappearing into smoke, then twiggy thyme and allspice berries, that jack-of-all-spices, summoning a Christmassy trinity of cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves. Where is the heat, you wonder, and then your tongue lights up. This is how Scotch bonnet peppers attack: one detonation after another, like a string of firecrackers.”

Other Jamaican culinary mainstays also found favour with the reviewer’s palate.

“Chewiness is embraced here, in the oxtail, which refuses to disavow its true nature, and the wondrously named bammy, a flat griddle cake slightly tacky from cassava flour,” Mishan wrote.

Fisherman’s Dawta is located on 407 Atlantic Avenue (Bond Street), Boerum Hill, Brooklyn.

Telephone (347) 652-951