Oxtail Is Gaining Fans. That’s Not Entirely Good.

When the chef Lerone Mullin opened the Jerk Grill, his fast-casual restaurant in Redlands, Calif., in 2021, customers told him they loved his Caribbean classics, like brown stew chicken, and his Caribbean-Mexican mash-ups, like a jerk chicken burrito. But they asked for one addition.“Everybody just wanted oxtail,” he said, adding, “I didn’t even know it was that popular.”So, inspired by smash burgers, Mr. Mullin created a version that spoke to his Jamaican roots: a burger griddled with sliced onions, topped with a portion of stewed oxtail meat, American cheese and aioli on a…