The words Lonie Murdock says she was handed were passionate, emotional and opinionated, and the room she was running when she heard them is a Caribbean fine dining restaurant she opened in downtown Washington on October 29, 2025.
“I have been called passionate, emotional and opinionated, when in reality I was confident in my vision and unwilling to let it be diminished,” she said.
Murdock is the executive chef and restaurateur behind Isla, which covers more than 8,000 square feet. Before it there was Miss Likklemore’s, her Canadian restaurant, which began as a pop-up in 2020. She looked at Miami and New York and picked Washington. “DC felt like a place where I could live and truly be myself,” she said.
The cooking comes out of the two cultures she grew up between, and she does not accept that getting creative with it means leaving it behind. “For a long time, there was a fear that creativity around our food might be seen as a departure from culture,” she said. “But in reality, it comes from a deep respect and love for it.”
She is not treating one dining room as the end of it. “I hope my success helps make it easier for the next generation to access funding, secure great locations, build partnerships and be taken seriously from the start,” she said. “Our time is now.”
