David James describes his union with wife Sheilah as “a marriage made in food heaven.” Sheilah James adds that their shared business, Jammin’ Island BBQ, is the result of “two island-centric individuals.” She is a native of the Philippines. Her husband is a Canadian of Jamaican heritage. Together, they birthed a jerk sauce that I just can’t seem to quit.
David learned the basics of making a killer jerk chicken while working for Jamaican culinary giant Norma Shirley at her Miami Beach restaurant. He had the opportunity to put it to use in 2009, when he was working for Sodexo at Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium in DC. “An opportunity popped up for us to do our own stand. They were looking for diverse, good food,” he recalls. Sheilah was new to the United States and working in the kitchen at the Pentagon City outpost of the Ritz-Carlton at the time. When her husband proposed that they do a Jamaican stand, she initially balked. “I was like, ‘I don’t cook Jamaican food. I only know Filipino food,'” she remembers.
Ultimately, Sheilah found a way to put her own Filipino spin on Shirley’s recipe. The result begins with a compelling sweetness, then a building tartness. The combination isn’t too different from Filipino adobo until the heat of the chiles hits, lustily Jamaican, but somehow firmly itself.
The Jameses agree that Filipino and Jamaican ingredients are actually strikingly similar. The first time David visited his future wife in her homeland, he was struck by the presence of the yucca, breadfruit, and sugar cane with which he’d grown up. So really, the fusion that their marriage created isn’t so surprising.
Jammin Island BBQ gained a reputation at stadiums, including a seven-year run at Nationals Park. A year before the pandemic hit, the business migrated to a food truck at which diners lined up all over Arlington. It was thanks to that business that Epiq Food Hall principal Michael Kim approached them. They opened at the Woodbridge food hall last April and added a location at the Springfield Town Center, where I tried their ribs this year.
The ribs are crusted with char, but melt within. Slathered in the sauce, they sing. I paired my half-rack with crunchy, sweet fried plantains and thyme-speckled rice and peas.
But if David James has his way, I’ll soon be able to use the sauce on whatever I want. “The idea is for us to get the sauce on shelves,” he says. “There should be a bottle in every home in NoVA.” They’re also hoping to open a brick-and-mortar location in the next year. Which all means that it’s getting increasingly easy for me to get a fix of that exceptional sauce.
6500 Franconia-Springfield Pkwy, Springfield; 14067 Noblewood Plaza, Woodbridge
Feature image by Alice Levitt
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