Please note, Tone has now closed. Time Out Food editors, May 2018.
A teeny café decorated with Run DMC posters in the middle of Willesden Green, Tone is the kind of community spot that does a bit of everything: creative writing on Mondays, ‘social chess’ on Wednesdays and old-school hip hop vinyl sets on Fridays. But the best thing on offer? Delicious, ludicrously good value Jamaican food. No need to get FOMO: that’s the one thing they serve up daily.
The star of the menu was a big plate of jerk chicken for £5.50 (lunacy, right?). Cooked according to a secret family recipe by Tony, Tone’s lovely chef-patron, the meat itself was beautifully tender and came coated in a juicy, saucy, warmly spiced marinade. The plantain salad that followed was a little wet and the de rigueur patties came out a tad doughy, but this is proper home cooking, and extremely unpretentious. There’s also excellent house-blended coffee called – guess what – Tone.
Relaxation is infectious, and this place is so chill that when I asked for ice in my drink Tony popped across the road, picked up a bag up from the corner shop and plopped a cube in. Just like Willesden Green, Tone’s scruffy in a good way.