For me, carnival is my baby. I like
hearing what other people think about my
culture. So, you see them come the first
day and they eat the food and they're
coming back the next day and they're
telling you that they'd stand in line
again for that food. Just knowing that
I'm putting my culture out there on a
plate, it's just very
>> satisfying.
>> Yeah.
>> I'm Michelle.
>> Hi, I'm Omar. And we are Sun Valley
Jerk. We founded our business in 2018.
basically just out of the mere love of
cooking and wanted to make people feel
good about what they're eating and to
introduce a lot of the Caribbean stuff
as well to people who haven't tried it.
>> It's Jamaican predominantly um
Caribbean.
>> We do like jerk chicken. We do jerk
pork, oxtail, curried mutton.
>> It's just taking all the spices from
Jamaica and just serving it on a platter
for people to appreciate our culture.
We started carnival in 2016.
Um that was a funny story. No
experience. We just wanted to try it. I
was in bed and I said, "Oh, let me
apply." Didn't know the magnitude of
what was to come.
>> We were naive what to expect. Um on the
first year, but we've gained experience
over the past what is it now 9 years.
>> We went to the same university in
Jamaica. Food was always in my
background. My mother had a restaurant
in Jamaica.
>> We met through a mutual friend.
>> Yes. The matchmaker.
>> Actually, me and my friend, we shared
the house and she went to visit the
friend and we met and it was just been
magics ever since.
>> The way to a man's heart is through his
stomach. Yeah. So, yeah, he's been
captivated by my cooking since.
>> I moved to London 20 years ago.
>> I came here in 2014. I'm coming from a
banking background. the company that I
was working for, they they made me
redundant and because we were doing this
cooking on the side, we we thought that
you know what, let's just see where this
takes us. We didn't want 20 years down
the line we say, I wonder what would
have happened if we tried the business.
So,
>> we're giving it a go.
>> And we've been on the road since growing
from strength to strength.
You'll do like um probably two weeks
work in two days. That's what you're
doing at Carnival really. the prepping,
um, just being on the ground, getting
everything organized. It's just a lot of
work.
I like hearing what other people think
about my culture. So, you see them come
the first day and they eat the food and
they're coming back the next day and
they're telling you that they stand in
line again for that food and then they
find you on the market. So, just knowing
that I'm putting my culture out there on
a plate really essentially. Um, yes.
It's just very