Denai Moore’s face lights up when I mention Kelis. “It kind of makes sense, the food and music world linking together!” she exclaims. “I think anything that heavily relies on your own validation, to me, makes sense.”

Musicians are often multi-talented. Many of them supplement their day job with production work, label ownership, DJ sets, and other pursuits. A handful venture outside of the industry, and into the weirdly natural overlap between music and food. Take MUNCHIES’ own Action Bronson and Meyhem Lauren , or singer-songwriter Kelis training as a saucier at Le Cordon Bleu.

“The vegan world there is also massive there’s so many exciting food spaces and chefs that are coming up in that space,” she tells me.

The Moore I meet is mellow, apron-clad, and serving me vegan ackee and saltfish from a makeshift stall. Since 2017, Moore has run Dee’s Table , a vegan Jamaican culinary business. It mainly comprises supper clubs and stalls in London, however, Moore recently flew her venture to Los Angeles.

Best known for her music , Moore’s blend of soul, folk, and electro draws almost 69,000 Spotify listeners per month. Her vocals on SBTRKT’s 2014 album Wonder Where We Land pricked industry ears, and since then she has released two acclaimed albums of her own.

Moore would know, she’s a singer-songwriter and part-time chef. The 24-year-old straddles both worlds, collaborating with SBTRKT in one orbit and devising supper clubs in another.

“Where I grew up, I had three different mango trees in my garden. My aunty grows the best avocados,” she beams.

Despite reaching the modish heights of LA, Dee’s Table has humble origins. Moore spent the first decade of her life in Jamaica (Kingston, then Spanish Town).

“Wherever I go, I’m always inspired by the food I’ve eaten there,” Moore explains. “Mexican cuisine is so heavily influential in the LA space at the moment—this idea was inspired by my stay there, but still with Jamaican flavours.”

We talk at the Vegan Nights food festival in East London, where her main dish is an ode to LA. Moore and her team pile jerk cauliflower into a crispy plantain roti taco shell, top it with charred pineapple salsa, and finish with a spring onion aioli drizzle.

Moore was raised around fresh ingredients and ate the “quintessential Jamaican diet,” something she tries to reinvent with Dee’s Table. Part of this reinvention comes through making traditionally meat-based dishes vegan.

“Ackee and saltfish is kinda the national dish,” Moore explains. “I do a version of saltfish where I use seaweed—I use nori—to get the flavour of the fish.”

Encased in dumplings, Moore’s ackee and saltfish does have an unmistakable fishy taste. The creamy ackee plays off the salty “fish” nicely, as does the spring onion aioli. It doesn’t surprise me to hear that she spent years developing dishes like this one before launching Dee’s Table.

“I’d think, ‘If I had a menu, what would the restaurant look like?’” Moore says. “It’s something that has always been in my head, and I’ve always cooked at home for friends and family and thrown dinner parties.”

She adds: “With vegan food, its all about thinking about where the saltiness is coming from, the sweetness—anything from the traditional dish—then supplementing it in different ways.“