Kwame Onwuachi

Kwame Onwuachi is a James Beard Award-winning chef, and author of the critically acclaimed memoir, Notes from a Young Black Chef, which is being adapted into a feature film by A24. Kwame’s resume is incomparable as he has been named one of Food & Wine’s Best New Chefs, Esquire Magazine’s 2019 Chef of the Year, and is a 30 Under 30 honoree by both Zagat and Forbes. He was featured on the TIME 100 Next 2019 List and has been named the most important Chef in America by the San Francisco Chronicle.

Raised in New York City, Nigeria, and Louisiana, Kwame was first exposed to cooking by his mother, in the family’s modest Bronx apartment. He took that spark of passion and turned it into a career. He trained at the Culinary Institute of America in New York and has opened five restaurants before the age of thirty, including the groundbreaking Afro-Caribbean restaurant, Kith/Kin, in Washington, D.C.

Kwame appeared as a judge on season 18 of “Top Chef” in April 2021. He first appeared as a contestant on the show in season 13. He currently serves as Food & Wine’s executive producer. In September 2021, Kwame hosted the esteemed James Beard Awards in Chicago.

Kwame recently released his first-ever critically acclaimed cookbook, My America: Recipes from a Young Black Chef. Featuring more than 125 recipes, the book is a celebration of the food of the African Diaspora, as handed down through his own family history, spanning Nigeria to the Caribbean, the South to the Bronx, and beyond. In the fall of 2022, Kwame will debut his new restaurant concept at the Lincoln Center in New York City.