Please note that since writing this blog post, Planet Rose has closed down
Over seven years ago now, the place I called home was Brixton in south London. Or rather, since I never really felt like much of a Londoner, I guess I should say it was the place I lived. Brixton had a bad reputation (and often with good reason – I was offered more drugs and propositioned more times on the street than I’ve ever experienced in the Red Light District), but there were some good things about it too. One of which was the regular Saturday lunchtime hungover trip to a Caribbean hole-in-the-wall on Brixton Hill, whose name I’ve long since forgotten.
Stepping into Planet Rose, just off Amsterdam’s Kinkerstraat, took me back almost a decade: not only was I greeted with bright turquoise tables and chairs and a multi-coloured hand-written menu on a white board, but the owner even had a London accent. She’s like the Jamaican mother you never had – warm, generous and her speech littered with “babes” and “loves”. I’d had – frankly – a shocker of a day, and her offer of a glass of rum punch (complete with sparkly twizzle stick!) was better timed than Usain Bolt’s ability to cross a finish line.
