Ackee Tree

Sorry guys, I think this place is CLOSED.
RIP Ackee Tree

Juicy Jerk chicken. Massive yummy roti. Great selection of beer and rum.

The reviews are generally accurate for this place.
While it’s true that the prices are a tad high for the portion sizes, they aren’t unreasonable. It certainly wasn’t bad enough for me to come three times to eat. But they are prices that the market will bear — when there’s as many Jamaican restaurants as there are, say, Chinese, I’m sure the prices will go down. The dinner plates were a bit big. The lunch plates were a bit small (on the meat — a bit too much rice and beans).
Some of the female servers who work here can be unfriendly and give poor service. Most of the people who work here suffer from the same turtle-​like slowness and lackadaisical way of serving customers that plague many Jamaican restaurants. Watching these people is like watching molasses flow in January.
I wish they took credit cards.
Reading through the other reviews, I gather the vegetarian fare (which I have not tried for the most part) is not very good.
There’s wifi here, but I don’t know if it’s for the public. I forgot to ask when I was there last.
Spicy Beef Patty: A
It was spicy, but not overly so. The Beef Patties I used to get in Brooklyn were 3-​alarm fire spicy. These were maybe a fifth as spicy as those. I think most people would be a little disappointed with these patties — mine was definitely over-​cooked. The inside meat was dried out near the edge of the patties. I’m a weirdo because I *like* it that way. Most people won’t, I suspect. You typically eat these things like a sandwich in coco bread. At home, the coco bread was necessary because the patty was so damned spicy. Here, the coco bread is not only unnecessary, but kind of a waste; the patties are just not spicy enough to warrant the coco bread.
Coco Bread: B–
A bit more like regular bread than the coco bread I get back home. It had good flavor, but a tad plain.
Ox tail: A+
My favorite dish here. I saw another reviewer agree with this sentiment. Hands down, the juiciest most flavorful dish I’ve had here. If you come here once, this is what I’d recommend, not the jerk chicken. Lots of oily delicious sauce that you’d love to soak up with rice and beans.
Jerk Chicken: B
The menu boasts that this is their best dish. Their menu is very wrong! The oxtail is much better. I agree with one of the other reviewers: the jerk chicken is mediocre. Not great. Not bad. It’s definitely good. Nicely cooked, but it could stand to have a little sauce; maybe a bit more juicy would be nice.
Appetizer
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Festival: A–
Listed as an appetizer, this is actually a dessert. It’s like fried cornbread with lemon flavoring. Tough chewy outside, soft lemony starchy inside. A hint of sweetness. It would be GREAT with tea or coffee. I’m thinking of having this for breakfast tomorrow. I’d eat it for a dessert, not an appetizer.
Callaloo: A–
Like collard greens or kale or spinach. Delicious flavor. My only gripe is that the cook should have peeled the outside of the stem a bit more carefully because sometimes you’ll take a bite of something that can’t be chewed, so you have to spit it out. Note to vegetarians: You will want to ask how this is cooked; I’m guessing it gets cooked in beef broth.
Rice and Peas: B–
As a previous reviewer said, a bit dry. Otherwise, pretty good. I’d definitely order this if you get the ox-​tail since the ox-​tail has lots of sauce that compliments the rice and beans well. If you get the jerk chicken, the rice and beans are kind of a waste.
Dessert
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Rum Cake: A–
I loved it, but I’m guessing many people won’t. It’s only slightly sweet, with a hint of rum. Don’t think of Jewish rum cake that is soaked and saturated with rum. This is much more subtle. Very dense and thick. Icing is also subtle; not super sweet.

I always walk by this place and I never go in. Today I convinced my friends to go and we were satisfactorily full. The five of us had:
— Jerk Chicken plate: came with rice and coleslaw. this was one of the better dishes we ordered. Flavourful and juicy, but I’ve had better.
— Jerk Pork: tastes good, but pretty dry.
— Oxtail plate: with rice and coleslaw. the best dish of the night. very delicious!
— Curry Chicken: good, but not spectacular.
I find the price is not that cheap for Caribbean food and the portions aren’t so big. it’s about $ 14 for the large plates and $ 8 for dishes without rice or coleslaw. Unless you do a large plate alone, you may not get full.
It’s not bad, but I’ve had better.

I’ve been coming here for the past few of months and I’ve tried their roti, jerk chicken, fried chicken, and oxtail. The food is decent but not great.
I found the roti and rice & peas to be really dry. The portions for a regular entrée is a decent size but I find the price to be ridiculous. From 12 – 2, they have these lunch «specials» for $ 10 and it includes a meat of your choice, rice and coleslaw, all inside a little box comparable to the boxes McDonalds uses for their burgers. A «medium» sized jerk chicken entrée, which is just the thigh, will run you $ 12 – 14.
My favourite item to get would be the fried chicken. The skin is crispy and light; not heavy or greasy. But portion wise, again, it’s like the jerk chicken and the prices are the same.
Coming here once and awhile is a good change of pace from all the Chinese restaurants in the area.

This place totally deserves more stars than it’s getting, at least as of a half-​year ago when I was last in Toronto.
What really makes this place stand out is that it’s not your typical Jamaican jerk chicken joint. The ackee fruit and salt-​fish dish this place takes its name from was out of this world good. I can’t even describe how delicious the stewed oxtail was — the dark-​brown bracken sauce was so savory and rich and multi-​dimensional I would be happy eating just the sauce on rice. Not to mention they served the best jerk chicken I’ve ever had. I’m no Jamaican food connoisseur and this is as close to authentic as I’ve had — but barring that this is easily one of the coolest eating experiences I’ve had.

Ackee Tree offers very average quality food that is disappointingly short on vegetarian options and mediocre service at best. While nobody was rude to me, they certainly weren’t eager to help. A whole lot of hot sauce helped liven up the meal, but should that really be necessary? I think not.

Man, it’s hot in this place. I walked in on a cold winter’s afternoon and my glasses fogged up faster that Reagan’s memory. As waited for the lenses to clear, I took in my surroundings. Ackee Tree is a pretty spacious restaurant with lots of seating in the back. It has peach-​coloured walls adorned with large canvasses, and is somewhat blurry. I put my glasses back on and placed an order.
I was in the mood for a light snack so I ordered up a spicy beef patty on a cocobun. The girl behind the counter seemed visibly disappointed by this, and vanished into the back — presumably to wear they keep the beef patties and cocobuns. In the meantime, I scanned their selection of drinks Carribean and otherwise: Ting, Ginger beer, Kola Champagne, and something called Tropical Rhythms which looked like it might be a fruit nectar but wasn’t. Except for water and diet coke, everything seemed to contain sugar.
Paying was the most controversial part of this experience. I used debit and not only is there a $ 0.50 there is also an option to leave either a 15% or 20% tip. Do you remember that part in SpaceQuest III when Roger Wilco is at the space restaurant and the alien asks if you want space fries with that, and your options are «yes» and «yes»? It was like that. Pressing «other» does nothing. Refusing to pay an additional 15 (or 20 ha!) percent on my now $ 3.65 beef patty (which would bring the price to $ 4.20, hmmm), I asked her straight up: «how do I not leave a tip»? The answer: press ‘report’. Now you know! Emm, ee, aitch.
Obligatory Title Pun: Kathy said it best: ACK!
Menu Readability: Printed very beautifully on a large chalkboard behind the counter.
Need to mention: The food was OK. I’ve had better beef patties and it wasn’t really spicy at all.
What this place teaches me about myself: I played way too much SpaceQuest.

We ordered quite a large round of food for only two people. Some curried chicken, plenty of rice and peas, several patties of mixed varieties, some callaloo and then the highly anticipated… saltfish and ackee.
Based on the reviews I’ve been reading, it seems that people are missing the food that is in the name of the business. Saltfish and fish is the national dish of Jamaica and it’s a fantastic one at that. Since visiting the island in Spring ’07, the lady and I have been visiting restaurant after restaurant, browsing menu after menu, only to always walk away disappointed. Ackee is something that you just can’t find in the states.
Imagine a magical fruit that has a glowing golden color. Tear it open and throw it on a skillet. Then begin to fry it up like as if you’re preparing scrambled eggs. That, everyone, is ackee. A fruit that both looks and tastes remarkably like scrambled eggs. Combine that with the savoury delight of saltfish, douse it in hot sauce, and then you have my favourite food of Jamaica.
Another unique treat they have is callaloo. That is yet another island food we could find once we were back on the continent. Ackee Tree didn’t let us down there either. Callaloo is actually amaranth leaves, which again, I’ve never seen that stateside.
Considering that I don’t plan on returning to Jamaica any time in the near future, it always makes me smile to tell people that the last time that I had good Jamaican food was the last time that I was in Canada.

Walked in hoping for the best, but left disappointed. The Sweet Potato & Avocado sandwich, although with a good amount of avocado, had one sliver of sweet potato and a barely ripe tomato slice. The veggie roti had nice flavor but lacked the chick peas my partner ordered. The restaurant was busy on a Saturday afternoon, but not busy enough for us to have received the poor service that we did: incorrect order, did not deliver beverages and did not check up to see how we were doing. At the end of all this, their credit card machine asks if you’d like to leave a «15% or 20%» tip, and that’s it. (I agree with Tee E.: high prices, poor service and, I’ll add, mediocre food.)

I was a little unsure when I first ordered, but was pleasantly surprised on how good the chicken curry was. I am in Toronto on a business trip and have tried all types of curry this week and if not the best, this curry was on par with anything I’ve eaten. I took the advice of a fellow Unilocaler when they recommended the jerk fries, very good, but the curry was the best part of my meal.
The atmosphere was OK, nothing spectacular.
If you measure on food alone, 4 stars, but the atmosphere and service don’t complete the experience.

Good savory/​saucy meals. We had the jerk chicken, oxtail, and boneless beef stew. The rice and peas was also really good. Overall, it’s a good place for a quality dinner at an inexpensive price. Was caught in this restaurant a bit longer than expected because of the sudden thunderstorms outside in downtown Toronto!

Does anyone else find the price outrageous and the service mediocre at this restaurant? The food is great but the servers act like you are begging them for food! LOL. the portions are so small and unlike most restaurants, the choices are so limited and unaccomodating

They have a lunch special for $ 5.50 where you get some jerk chicken /​slaw /​rice and peas. The jerk chicken was tasty but didn’t have enough spice but the rice and peas were awesome.
The beef patty was okay. The patty shell was thickier than I perfer but the meat filling was tasty and well seasoned.
The jerk fries were quite pricey. $ 4.00 for some normal fries with a little jerk seasoning.
I would give this place a 3.5 star review.

Yum. No need to wait for August; my tongue/​stomach was celebrating its own inner-​body Caribana. Aye aye aye!
I had the jerk chicken sandwich, made with large chunks of jerk chicken, sweet potato, tomato, and pepper mayo stacked between two sweet, soft slices of coco bread. It was a nice overall taste, but I thought the chicken wasn’t spicy enough, and the sweet potato not really flavourful. However, it’s still great and, combined with the awesome jerk french fries and a bottle of ginger beer, it made a perfectly feisty meal.
I’ve heard about some so-​so/​slow service at this place, but I saw none of it myself: the afternoon team was extremely friendly and we got our food within 10 minutes of ordering. Plus, the colourful room was warm (the windows are always steamed up in the winter), and is a much needed escape from the grey, blah streets outside.
Break out the tight pants, I’m ready to shake it. Kind of.

Living in a sheltered world growing up, Ackee was not part of my lexicon. I even went to Jamaica to a resort and the only «jamaican food» I ate was dry rice and beans– not so appealing. Then, I discovered Ackee Tree. I first tried one of the sandwiches. Sweet potato and Avocado are both super smooth ingredients and it makes for an interesting experience, but not one worth going back for. Second time around I tried the national dish of Jamaica, the Ackee and Saltfish on rice… LOVE IT! What a vibrant dish with spices, onions, peppers, ackee (a fruit only grown in the land of reggae) and saltfish (a salty, tough to chew, but packing a punch– fish).
I’ve been back several times. I prefer this dish on white rice to the ‘rice and peas’. It allows the juices of the saltfish to be more prominent.
Portions are huge!
Best of all– NOTE: You can bring your own container for take-​out. Who thinks of these earth-​saving ideas??? I love it.