Notes from a Young Black Chef

Kwame Onwuachi is the James Beard Award-winning executive chef at Kith/Kin in Washington, D. C. He was born on Long Island and raised in New York City, Nigeria, and Louisiana. Onwuachi was first exposed to cooking by his mother, in the family’ s modest Bronx apartment, and he took that spark of passion and turned it into a career. From toiling in the bowels of oil cleanup ships to working at some of the best restaurants in the world, he has seen and lived his fair share of diversity. Onwuachi trained at the Culinary Institute of America and opened five restaurants before turning thirty. A former  Top Chef  contestant, he has been named Esquire’ s Chef of the Year, one of  Food & Wine’ s Best New Chefs, and a 30 Under 30 honoree by both  Zagat  and  Forbes.