James Beard Award-winning chef Nina Compton shares recipes that tell the story of her thrilling culinary journey from St. Lucia to Jamaica, Miami, and New Orleans, and celebrate the diverse African heritage that threads these cuisines together.

Growing up in St. Lucia, a small island in the Eastern Caribbean, chef Nina Compton developed a strong sense of community through cooking and food. As she traveled and worked in restaurants abroad, she was eager to learn, improvise, and innovate by doing what transplants like herself do best: Bring the best of home with them wherever they go. Kwéyòl / Creole explores the cuisines and pivotal locales that form the basis of Nina’s unique culinary perspective: from her birthplace in St. Lucia, to Jamaica where her view of Caribbean cuisines broadened, to Miami where she was immersed in Afro-Latin influences and continued to hone her cooking style, and finally New Orleans, her adopted city whose Creole cuisine brought her home in new ways. 

In St. Lucia, when they say “Creole,” they don’t mean French-influenced. The St. Lucian Creole, or Kwéyol, celebrates a diverse African heritage, beautifully reflected in the 100 recipes presented here. The dishes are both transportive and irresistible, each telling a story of its multi-faceted history and influences: steamed snapper with a peppery ginger sauce, slow-cooked curried goat, green fig and saltfish, coconut-braised collard greens, Creole-stewed conch, the countless possibilities of the beloved plantain. In these pages, the weather is warm and tropical, and the vibe is easygoing, just like the places Nina’s lived. The dishes are full of flavor and the mood is chill.


Full of stunning travel photography and anchored by Nina’s singular culinary vision, Kwéyòl / Creole celebrates the rich history of where she comes from, while forging something that feels a little new, a little hers. And now, with this book, a little yours, too.

"James Beard award-winning chef Nina Compton shares recipes and stories inspired by her culinary journey from Saint Lucia to the American South and the deep African culinary roots that thread these cuisines together. Growing up in Saint Lucia, a small island nestled in the heart of the Caribbean, chef Nina Compton developed a deep sense of community through cooking and food. As she traveled and worked in restaurants abroad, she was eager to learn, improvise, and innovate by doing what transplants like herself do best: Bring the best of home with them wherever they go. Kwâeyáol / Creole explores the cuisines that form the basis of her unique culinary perspective, from St. Lucia and the Caribbean to the Afro-Latino cuisine of Miami where she continued to hone her cooking style, the Creole cuisine of New Orleans, and the indigenous and African influences underpinning them all. The recipes are both transportive and irresistible: callaloo greens with coconut cream, guava vinaigrette drizzled over banana, homemade curry with fresh turmeric and ginger, pickled mango and avocado salad, jerk-buttered corn, Creole potato salad, the countless possibilities of the beloved plantain. Interwoven short essays offer fascinating insight into the cultural experiences connected to Nina's food, such as folktales and origin stories of the "twin" holidays of Creole Day in Saint Lucia and Mardi Gras in New Orleans. Full of beautiful travel photography and Nina's uplifting voice and singular culinary vision, Kwâeyáol / Creole stands at a thrilling intersection of cultures and foodways"--