Wed | Jan 21, 2026

It’s hot lava-stone-cooked food at Strings!

Published:Friday | December 22, 2023 | 12:05 AM
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The backdrop of the bar inside Strings, a restaurant at Spanish Court Hotel in New Kingston.
Paul H Afree Kan Williams
The backdrop of the bar inside Strings, a restaurant at Spanish Court Hotel in New Kingston.
Ludo, Checkers and cards, popular games people in Jamaica play, are represented by a work of art on a dining table inside Strings.
Paul H Afree Kan Williams
Ludo, Checkers and cards, popular games people in Jamaica play, are represented by a work of art on a dining table inside Strings.
Stringed musical instruments adorning the eastern wall of Strings, a restaurant at Spanish Court Hotel in New Kingston.
Paul H Afree Kan Williams
Stringed musical instruments adorning the eastern wall of Strings, a restaurant at Spanish Court Hotel in New Kingston.
Finger food served at Strings, a restaurant at Spanish Court Hotel in New Kingston on the evening of Tuesday, December 19.
Paul H Afree Kan Williams
Finger food served at Strings, a restaurant at Spanish Court Hotel in New Kingston on the evening of Tuesday, December 19.
Luis Fitch, chief operating officer at Spanish Court Hotel in New Kingston slicing meat cooked on a hot lava stone as bartender Mark Moodie looks on inside Strings, during the Jamaica Tourist Board media appreciation party reception on Tuesday, December 19
Paul H Afree Kan Williams
Luis Fitch, chief operating officer at Spanish Court Hotel in New Kingston slicing meat cooked on a hot lava stone as bartender Mark Moodie looks on inside Strings, during the Jamaica Tourist Board media appreciation party reception on Tuesday, December 19.
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SPANISH COURT Hotel in St Andrew is a well-known brand for many reasons, and there might just be another in the making. It has a new restaurant, ‘Strings’, an annex created on a section of the parking lot, with an inside-outside aura, as the walls are made only of glass. Scenes of Jamaican landscapes and lifestyles are painted on the dining tables in this somewhat intimate space.

Attached to the eastern wall are string musical instruments, and the backdrop of the bar is a mural painted on zinc. At the centre of the mural is an artistic representation of a portion of another string instrument; to the left is a painted image of Stephen ‘Cat’ Coore; and to the right is an impression of reggae icon Bob Marley. Live performances will eventually be part of the offering.

The main feature of the restaurant is that food can be cooked on piping-hot lava stones. On Tuesday, December 19, it hosted the reception for the Jamaica Tourist Board 2023 media appreciation party, which was a pre-opening event. And, of course, flesh cooked on hot lava stones was served by Luis Fitch, chief operating officer at Spanish Court. What a lava! A gastronomic must-go-to is in the making.

– Paul H. Williams