The menu will consist of approximately 15 to 18 tasting courses of “modern American cuisine with global inspiration. The Shaw Bijou is scheduled to open late winter. Never give up and chase what makes you happy. What would you tell young chefs just starting out? Nostalgic stories or those ah ha moments. The surprise of it all!! What are your favorite stories to tell through food? I put the two together and The Shaw Bijou was born. Shaw, is the district in Washington DC and Bijou means Jewel in French which is my mother’s name. My mother is the only reason I am opening this restaurant, so it is only right that I name my first one after her. It also adds another dimension of who you are as a person by being in charge of other people’s livelihood. It is like you finally get it, you understand why some of your chefs were so hard on you. I think becoming a restaurant owner has had the biggest impact on me. What has made the greatest impact on you during your culinary career? Once you get that you can take that anywhere and succeed. The highlight of these two experiences was really about setting the foundation for me, I had been cooking for most of my life but that solid refined foundation is what I was lacking. I hung out with him after that at Eleven Madison Park for a project at school and asked him for a job. I met Daniel Humm at the Culinary Leadership Awards. Your relationship with Daniel Humm led to your time at Eleven Madison Park. The head baker had once been the head baker at Per Se, so when I went to the Culinary Institute of America, he made a couple phone calls for me and I was in. How did you make the move from catering to kitchen?Īfter a year of roughing it in the catering world, I finally got my own commercial kitchen space at Hot Bread Kitchen in NYC. From there, he was offered the opportunity to travel with Dinner Lab, a roving supper club series that travels to major cities in the U.S. By the age of 20, before working in some highly regarded restaurants such as Per Se (where he did his culinary externship) and Eleven Madison Park, Kwame had started his own catering company. “My mother's peel and eat Cajun shrimp is probably my favorite thing in the world to eat,” says Kwame. Like many chefs, Kwame’s interest in cooking was sparked by his mother, who operated a catering company while growing up. In conversation with Tim Carman, food reporter at the Washington Post, Onwuachi discusses his journey to pursue his passion, and what happened when things didn’t turn out as he expected.Ĭopies of Notes from a Young Black Chef (Knopf) are available for purchase and signing.We recently had the honor of having Chef Kwame Onwuachi on the farm for a visit. at the Wharf and a 2019 James Beard Award nominee for Rising Chef of the Year. Today, he is the executive chef at the critically acclaimed Afro-Caribbean restaurant Kith/Kin at the InterContinental Washington D.C. He spent years planning his first restaurant, the high-concept (and high-priced) Shaw Bijou, which shuttered in early 2017, just 2 1/2 months after opening. As a young chef, Onwuachi was forced to grapple with how unwelcoming the world of fine dining can be for people of color. He launched his own catering company with $20,000 he made selling candy on the subway, and trained in the kitchens of some of the most acclaimed restaurants in the country.īut he found the road to culinary success was a difficult one. Growing up in the Bronx and Nigeria (where he was sent by his mother to "learn respect"), food was Onwuachi's great love. By the time he was 27, Kwame Onwuachi had competed on “Top Chef,” cooked at the White House, and opened and closed one of the most talked-about restaurants in the District.ĭrawing on his new book, Notes from a Young Black Chef: A Memoir, he shares the remarkable story of his culinary coming-of-age: one about the intersection of food, fame, and race.
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