From RosaCaleta to Soulful Sunday Dinners

Chef Troy Lopez has been an integral part of Berlin's gastronomic scene for three decades. Born in Kingston, he grew up in St. Anne and moved to New York to study literature before training as a chef in Paris and honed his craft in various kitchens.

In 2009, Lopez founded RosaCaleta in Kreuzberg together with his partner Kirk Henry. The restaurant quickly became a meeting place and made a name for itself with its innovative approach to Jamaican-European fusion cuisine. Lopez combines Caribbean ingredients such as Jamaican curry powder and pimientos de padrón with basic European ingredients. His groundbreaking menu included playful creations such as fiery guava jerk chicken, spicy-sweet pork with ginger gnocchi and plantain spätzle in coconut cream. After an extremely successful decade, the restaurant switched to a pure pop-up and catering model in 2021.

In addition to running RosaCaleta, Lopez hosts lively “Soulful Sunday” community dinners and runs a contract patisserie that specializes in in-demand specialties such as authentic Jamaican rum cake or key lime cheesecake. Animated by passion, romance, and culinary pragmatism, his culinary and hosting practice continues to bring together various Berlin communities. For many new arrivals to the city, these meetings played and still play an important role in building a new home away from home.

This issue of Tongue and Throat Memories opens a space to discuss food as a means of resistance and as a way to create places of belonging in the diaspora. With topics ranging from the celebration of various life events, such as birthdays and funerals, to the role of the chef as mediator and organizer, these discussions reinforce the idea of the restaurant as a lively salon: as a place of exchange, community and conviviality.