Hellshire

Hellshire Beach sits beyond Portmore on the dry southern coast, and for decades it has been where Kingston goes on a Sunday to eat fish. A line of wooden shacks stands on the sand, each with a fryer going, and the order is the same everywhere: a whole snapper or parrot fish, scored and fried hard, with festival, the slightly sweet fried dumpling, bammy, the cassava flatbread, and a pepper sauce. You pick the fish from the ice, it is weighed, and you wait. Behind the beach are the Hellshire Hills, a dry limestone wilderness that holds the Jamaican iguana, thought extinct until a hunter's dog found one in 1990.

Highlights

• The fish shacks - a row of fryers on the sand, each with its own following.
• Fried snapper with festival - the standard order, eaten with the fingers.
• Bammy - the cassava flatbread, soaked in coconut milk and fried.
• The Hellshire Hills - dry forest behind, home to the Jamaican iguana.

When to go

December to April is drier. Sunday is the day, when the whole strip is working and the beach is at its liveliest; weekdays are much quieter and fewer shacks open. Go at lunchtime.

Good to know

The beach has eroded dramatically over the last two decades and much of the sand that made it famous is gone, with the shacks now close to the water and some lost entirely; it is not the beach the older photographs show. The hard sell from competing shacks is constant. Facilities are basic and litter is a problem. Swimming here is not the draw.

Nearby

Fort Clarence beach is next door; Kingston is 40 minutes northeast.