Growing up in the Bronx, chef Kwame Onwuachi was surrounded by Jamaican corner bakeries, Trinidadian roti shops and Puerto Rican and Dominican restaurants. At home, his mom made crawfish étouffée with potatoes graced with house spice – food of the American South.
So it makes sense that the 32-year-old’s debut cookbook, My America: Recipes from a Young Black Chef, is a celebration of all of those comfort foods.
“All those dishes grouped together lay the groundwork for what I call American cuisine because it was what I ate while I was here as a kid,” he told DCist in an interview ahead of the book’s May 17 release.
Onwuachi, who opened two restaurants in D.C. before moving on to other ventures, began his journey to write his cookbook about two and a half years ago. That journey could be seen as a metaphor, but was also a real voyage the chef took to the stops so many of his ancestors made before they ended up in America, such as Nigeria and the Caribbean.
In the book — a follow-on of sorts to his memoir, Notes from a Young Black Chef — Onwuachi shares personal essays about those stops, as well as 125 recipes that celebrate foods of the African diaspora. Next to each recipe, Onwuachi says it was necessary to share background history on how the dishes were influenced by the slave trade.
“I think it’s important to give homage to everyone that’s come before it and everyone that had a hand in it,” he says. “Every dish tells a story in this book.”
Though he lives in Los Angeles now, Onwuachi is doing a series of events in D.C. this week to mark the book launch, in part because it was here that his profile began to expand. In 2016, after a run on Top Chef that took him almost to the finals, Onwuachi debuted the tasting-menu restaurant Shaw Bijou in D.C. Though it was short-lived and received criticism for its high prices, the following year, he made a comeback.
His second restaurant, Kith/Kin, told the story of not just himself, but his people. The menu of the restaurant in the Wharf Intercontinental Hotel reflected seafood gumbo he remembers his mom making as a kid, buljol (salted cod salad) and roti (flatbread) his Trinidadian grandfather made and suya (grilled proteins Onwuachi refers to in the book as “the grandfather of American barbecue,” and a recipe for which is included below) and fufu (a starchy accompaniment for stews) he remembers eating in Nigeria when he went to live with relatives there as a child.
Though the restaurant closed during the COVID pandemic, it still helped Onwuachi earn the James Beard Award for Rising Star Chef in 2019. He’s got a lot more going on too: his 2019 memoir is being turned into a movie, he’s appeared as a guest on many shows, including Selena + Chef, and recently launched a collaboration with nail polish line ORLY. He’s also acting in a movie called Sugar, out later this year on Amazon Prime, and preparing to host the second Family Reunion, a food festival celebrating the culinary contributions of Black and brown people, at Salamander Resort in Middleburg, Virginia this summer.
“It’s been super fulfilling to just chase happiness,” he says about his different endeavors. “I want to do things with intention and things that really bring me joy.” As to whether another restaurant, particularly one in D.C., will be the thing to bring him that joy anytime soon, Onwuachi isn’t ruling it out. “We’ll see. Still young. Got plenty of time,” he said.
Onwuachi’s cookbook, already a best seller on Amazon, is a reflection of that joy. He says it’s hard to believe, but that it feels good to know his book is connecting with people.
“I hope it’s up there in the culinary rafters of the cookbooks that changed the way people view Caribbean and African cuisine,” he says. “It’s super exciting, and I’m so humbled and so honored.”
You can catch Onwuachi in D.C. at Sixth & I on May 17 in conversation with Nina Oduro and at Maketto on May 18 for a book tour party.
