Restaurant owner Wendy Steadman serves up farm-to-table flavors of Jamaica with love and care.
Since December 2019, Steadman has run Celeste Jamaican Cuisine, named after his mother, a dine-in, takeout, and catering establishment that specializes in traditional Jamaican cuisine. From oxtail, goat, and jerk chicken to curries and whole fish, Steadman puts all his effort into preparing the dishes, taking the time necessary to achieve the flavors he wants.
Stedman opened the restaurant on Route 342 after an experience he had at work while on active duty at Fort Drum. He brought a box of food he had made for a coworker and asked him to open it when he got home. Instead, he opened it in his office and let everyone smell it. Others tried to get a taste, so Stedman, almost jokingly, told his coworker he would charge $10 a plate to discourage others.
Stedman said she returned the next day and her coworkers had set aside $110 for her, meaning nearly everyone in the office wanted her food.
Steadman describes his cooking as thoroughly traditional — in contrast to the Jamaicans who come to the US, who he says add a lot of ingredients along the way.
“They’re trying to satisfy different palates, so they mix things up,” she says, “and it’s not the way Jamaicans traditionally do it.”
Instead, she sticks to the same recipes she used growing up in her native Jamaica.
“If you have Jamaican friends and you go home with them for the holidays and you visit their moms, their grandmas, their aunts and their uncles, somewhere deep in Jamaica, the food will taste the same here,” Steadman said. “So a lot of people say they’ve had this food and it doesn’t taste the same. It’s made a different way, whereas mine is made the traditional way.”
Friends and family frequently fly in ingredients from Jamaica, including nutmeg, mint, cinnamon, and pimento allspice. She says curries from Jamaica are richer, so she sometimes flies them in. She visits about twice a year, and always packs herbs and spices in her suitcase when she leaves.
All of her meats are marinated for up to 24 hours before cooking. Her oxtail is cooked with fresh scallions, thyme and pimento, a Jamaican allspice. She said many people add tomatoes to their oxtail, but that’s not traditional, and is just one example of an added ingredient. Like all of her meats, the jerk chicken is cooked in a big pot on the stove with ingredients like thyme, scallions and Scotch bonnet, a Caribbean chili pepper. It’s similar to a habanero but a little hotter, she said.
“With a pressure cooker, you put everything in at once, turn it on and forget about it,” she says. “No, my food is cooked with love and a lot of care.”
Speaking of spiciness, Steadman said he has toned down the spiciness levels since opening to better suit local tastes.
“Some people like the taste, but find it too spicy,” she says.
Some of her customers are amazed to see the animal’s head and eyes included in her fish dishes — it’s a Jamaican tradition she grew up eating, and now she can teach locals up north the best way to eat it, too.
“In Jamaica, our parents would give us fish heads and we had to eat the little brains because it would make us smarter,” she said, laughing. “The flavor comes from the spices on the fish.”
Opening hours are split between lunch and dinner, allowing time for each service: Summer hours are 11am to 1pm, Monday to Friday, May through October, and dinner hours are 4pm to 7pm, Monday to Friday. In winter, the restaurant is closed Mondays and Tuesdays.
As much as she takes pride in her food, she also takes pride in her customer service.
“The moment someone walks through the door, we say, ‘Hello, how are you? We’ll be with you in five minutes.’ No matter how many people are in line, we greet the person who walks through the door,” she says, “and the food brings everyone together.”
