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Boswell’s Jamaican Grill: Bold Caribbean Legacy In The Big Easy

Chef Kaala Lawla runs the boat at the oldest registered Jamaican restaurant in New Orleans.

By Angela Xu

Last updated 31 Jan, 2025
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New Orleans is home to an incredibly diverse food scene, a melting pot of global culinary influences. Along Tulane Avenue, a multitude of Caribbean restaurants cast a light on the important role that West Indian cuisine has played in shaping the city’s gastronomy.

And among these, Boswell’s Jamaican Grill stands out as a pillar in the community.

Immigrating to America from Jamaica in 1988, Mr. Boswell Atkinson was a man on a mission. An engineer by trade, he owned a janitorial business before deciding to pursue his love for food by opening a restaurant. When Boswell’s first opened on Nola’s Broad Street in 1998, it was one of the first Jamaican restaurants in the entire city. Atkinson made a name for himself serving Jamaican staples such as jerk chicken and patty with coco bread. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina forced him to relocate his restaurant to its current location on Tulane Avenue, where it has been successfully operating for the past 20 years.

Meanwhile in Kingston, Jamaica in 2005, a young woman by the name of Kaala Lawla took a high school course in food and nutrition and absolutely fell in love with the subject. She fostered her passion for cooking by taking culinary courses at the local community college. After completing her bachelor’s degree in hotel and resort management, and a master’s degree in hospitality business management at the University of Delaware on a full-ride scholarship, Lawla was ready to take on the culinary world.

One of Lawla’s dreams was to open a Jamaican restaurant that paid homage to her roots. She fondly recalls large parties surrounded by aunts and uncles: “In Jamaica, we say ‘kill a goat and run a boat’. It’s about the fun of family being together, how we get our own meals together. Jamaica is a country [where] you grow your own food, you eat from your backyard” To this day, a hearty serving of curry goat can instantly transport Lawla back to her father’s backyard in Kingston, to the aromas of cooking a large meal made from scratch on a wood fire and the joy of family commensality.

Louisiana wasn’t originally a part of Lawla’s plan until she landed a job as a catering supervisor at Southern University in Baton Rouge. Within six months, she worked her way up to catering manager, and catering director five years after that. It was here that she met Mr. Atkinson’s wife in 2019. Lawla learned that Mr. Atkinson was planning to retire, and was offered the opportunity to run the restaurant. She immediately accepted this serendipitous offer, and took over Boswell’s Jamaican Grill in 2022, leaving the existing menu largely unchanged. “He was open for 25 years for a reason,” Lawla explains. “It’s a starting block for me.”

During Atkinson's quarter-century long tenure at the restaurant, he stuck to very traditional Jamaican dishes. The only menu item that indicated you were in New Orleans was the po’boy. When Lawla took over, she kept most of the original menu to honor Mr. Atkinson’s legacy, while infusing more Louisianian flavors through daily specials.

On any given day, you might see jambalaya, the iconic Cajun rice dish that blends African, French, and Spanish influences, given the Jamaican treatment with Lawla’s homemade jerk sausage. Or fettuccine alfredo, beloved by Italian immigrants in Louisiana, served alongside jerk chicken. In lieu of rice and red beans, expect rice and stew peas alongside a healthy dose of callaloo, a spinach-like Jamaican green.

While Lawla hopes to move the restaurant forward by continuing to thoughtfully blend Jamaican and local flavors, her first priority is to preserve the spirit of the restaurant that Mr. Atkinson opened 27 years ago, and to maintain its foothold in the Jamaican community. “Most of the Jamaican restaurants that you see in the area, Mr. Boswell is the one who helped them out.” Lawla explains. “Many people still stop by the restaurant to see him and pay their respects.”

Now retired, Mr. Atkinson still stops by the restaurant once a week to lend a helping hand or play domino with his friends. His eventual goal is to sell the building to Lawla, and move back to Montego Bay to enjoy island life with his wife.

For her part, Lawla is giving back to her community in a full-circle way. At Southern University, she witnessed a new generation who didn’t know the first thing about cooking. It didn’t make sense to her that students in Louisiana, home to one of the most important food cities in the country, did not have access to learn the fundamentals of cooking. Now, she teaches food and nutrition at Southern University, the same course where she fell in love with cooking, as a way to share what she has learned with the next generation of chefs and restaurateurs.

It hasn’t been easy, teaching and directing a catering program in Baton Rouge while also running a restaurant in New Orleans, an hour and a half away. Lawla is able to balance the demands of three jobs with the support of her family, who moved to Louisiana to help Lawla chase her dreams.

When I marvel at how Lawla is doing the most, she chuckles before responding astutely, echoing the spirit of her mentor, Mr. Atkinson. “You know, you only have one life to live.”

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