Off Menu: Bridgetown Roti filters Bajan flavors through an L.A. lens

If you’ve never had Rashida Holmes’ curry chicken roti — flaky, buttery paratha roti wrapped around a warmly spiced stew of dark-meat chicken, crunchy slaw and crispy skinned potatoes — you’re missing out. It’s presented in a package so tight and perfect it’s almost a shame to bite into it. But bite into it, of course, you must.

Holmes, chef-owner of Bridgetown Roti, a Caribbean food pop-up in downtown L.A., spent plenty of time navigating professional kitchens before realizing that the direction she’d been searching for, she’d had all along: the familiar and complex flavors of her Barbadian heritage.

The cooking of Holmes’ mother, Joy Clarke-Holmes, was particularly inspiring. “It was the food she made at the holidays that really inspired the business,� Holmes said. Little wonder that the chicken-stuffed roti is called Mom’s Curry Chicken on the menu.

For Holmes, Bridgetown Roti is not just a business, nor is it just another step on her culinary journey — it’s a way to meaningfully connect with her heritage and bring Caribbean flavors to Los Angeles.

“I was excited by the fact that there weren’t a lot of West Indian places [in L.A.], so I knew I could kind of exist in this unique space where I was presenting something that a lot of people hadn’t tried before,� Holmes said.

The pandemic, which has devastated the restaurant industry, has had at least one silver lining: It’s given a voice and thrust into the spotlight businesses and cuisines that haven’t been as widely celebrated as some others. “COVID provided a lot of those people, including myself, with the opportunity to do something that’s much smaller, that has less overhead, that didn’t need as much seed money to start,� Holmes said.

This latest episode of “Off Menu� focuses on the origins of Bridgetown Roti, Holmes’ experience navigating white-male-dominated spaces as a queer Black woman, the state of the restaurant industry and what needs fixing, and, of course, Caribbean food and what makes it so special.