Notes from a Young Black Chef

“These flavors—all of them—are my first language, even if the syntax and grammar have evolved with time.”

As Onwuachi struggles with The Discovery of Identity, food emerges as a landscape where he feels free to express the amalgamation of his many selves. Onwuachi sees Food as Connection and Story. It is a language that allows him to bring ideas and stories together and to help others connect with them.

“I come from a long line of restaurateurs, from a family whose roots were made of gravy and whose blood ran hot with pimentón.”

One way food anchors Onwuachi in his identity is its connection to ancestry and heritage. His mother owned a catering company, and his grandparents owned two bars in Texas. His grandfather taught him about his ancestors and the importance of carrying them with him. Onwuachi’s point of view pulls together all these roots into a cohesive story.

“My mom always carried Louisiana with her, in her cooking, in her accent, in her outlook.”

Jewel taught Onwuachi what it meant to carry one’s history while embracing the histories of others. Although she presented her son with myriad Creole dishes at the family table, she never shied away from introducing him to new cuisines. As a chef, Onwuachi told his story through his food, but he also felt it was important to give the other cooks in the kitchen the opportunity to shine and tell their stories. This is key to the way Onwuachi understands self-discovery. It is not enough for him to uncover his own sense of self; he seeks to help others do the same.

“As has been shown over and over again, black kids are more likely to get into trouble for the same behaviors white kids engage in, and I certainly could feel the story that I was a problem taking shape around me.”

Onwuachi’s rebellious nature plays a key role in his childhood and adulthood. As a boy, his rebellious attitude earned a ticket to Africa, where Onwuachi learned about his ancestry and the African diaspora. However, his perceived rebellion was fed by a system that assumed he was a problem before he did anything. Everyone around him assumed his character, and he shaped his identity to match. However, his rebellious nature would serve him as a chef. Not content to conform, Onwuachi pushes the boundaries of expectation.

“‘You’re not coming home,’ she said again, ‘until you learn respect.’

Respect. The word that hung between us like a wall.”

Throughout the work, Onwuachi shapes his own definition of respect. His mother sent him to Africa to learn respect. However, the version of respect required by his mother was not the same required by his father, chef de cuisines, teachers, and peers. Onwuachi instead developed a definition of respect that aligns with authentic leadership. He wanted to be someone who earns respect by celebrating and encouraging others rather than someone who elicits respect through Anger and Power.

“‘You can’t take this land with you,’ he said, patting my arms, ‘but your ancestors will never leave you. They are part of who you are.’”

This lesson from Onwuachi’s grandfather was transformational. Onwuachi learned that he carries his ancestors with him, as well as all his experiences and identities that he gathered along the way. Because of these influences, it was not enough for Onwuachi to be pigeonholed as a Nigerian chef or a Southern chef. His journey of self-discovery was marked by the fact that he contained multiple selves.

“The other thing is that I could slide from B.A.B.Y. Kwame to bourgeois Kwame with ease.”

The concept of code switching is key to the theme of the discovery of identity. The term typically refers to when people from an underrepresented group change their speech or actions to match those of another group. Onwuachi, for example, describes his ability to move fluidly from a more privileged group to a less privileged one.

“My ability to slide through two different worlds was my greatest asset in those years. It made me invisible when I had to be and visible when I wanted to be.”

Onwuachi began to see his ability to move between groups as a superpower. Because he could fit in with various groups, he could find jobs that took him out of his neighborhood and exposed him to new people and ideas. This fluidity played a significant role in his journey to becoming a chef.

“It was a strange time to make chicken curry, but that’s what I wanted. It reminded me of home all those years ago, when my mom stood next to me at the counter, teaching me how to chop and slice, onion tears rolling down our cheeks.”

Over time, Onwuachi discovered that food could help ground him and connect him with others. In this passage, Onwuachi wakes to find his home trashed after a night of partying. People are passed out on the floor, and there is no food in the fridge. He visits the grocery store and prepares a comforting chicken curry. This simple dish connects him to his mother and childhood. It grounds him and compels him to change his situation.

“For as long as I can remember, I’ve been able to move back and forth, uptown and downtown, between the black and white worlds and in between. [...] I knew how to be black in Nigeria, black in Soho, black in Harlem and the Bronx. But I didn’t know how to be black in the South.”

Moving to Baton Rouge created a snag in Onwuachi’s armor of various identities. Here, he did not know how to act. He had never experienced the kind of discrimination he witnessed in Louisiana. Black people were invisible and were not treated with the same Southern hospitality as white people. The unhealthy manifestations of anger and power that defined Onwuachi’s childhood home played out on a larger scale within the systemic racism of the American South. Because of this, Onwuachi felt disconnected from Black Southern culture.

“You’re scared. You’re sad. You think you deserve better. But I’m going to tell you this right now, though it’s something you should have learned already: No one deserves anything. You get what you work for.”

Although Onwuachi recognized the discrimination and struggle that shaped his circumstances, his mother pushed him to move beyond it. She felt it was important that her son have drive and ambition, and she supported and praised him when he worked hard to achieve something—even when the dream seemed impossible. Jewel was a significant figure in Onwuachi’s life and career, her motivation mirroring Onwuachi’s motto to work with a sense of urgency.

“I listened to their stories of home, of the gumbo and red beans and rice, jambalayas, crawfish boils and fried catfish their mamas made. Then I tried to re-create those recipes for them, drawing from my memory and from their descriptions.”

While working on the ship, Onwuachi learned to appreciate how food could connect others to their experiences and memories. He saw the work he did on the ship as a way of providing comfort to those who were struggling far from home. This passage aligns with the theme of food as connection and story. Onwuachi saw how switching the menu from frozen hashbrowns to gumbo could bolster and motivate others.

“If I had followed the rules, the guidelines and parameters that had been set for me—as a young black man in America—would have ground me down by now, legs cut off, subservient to someone. Obedience is not an option when the system is aligned against you.”

This quotation represents an important side to the theme of anger and power. Onwuachi faced discrimination and violent expressions of power from his father, friends, community, and workplace. Because he was accustomed to people wanting to exert power over him, he was also accustomed to rebelling against and challenging the status quo. This rebellion gave him the tenacity he needed to become a phenomenally successful chef.

“One of the heaviest burdens of walking through life with the scars of abuse is loving our abuser, respecting them, trusting them. Because if you do, it means you deserve their scorn, their blows, their insults.”

Although Onwuachi is speaking about his father, his words apply to power itself. Onwuachi resented his father’s exertions of power, but he respected them too. Letting go of that respect helped him to see not only his father and himself but also power in a new way—as something that inevitably degrades when wielded violently.

“And at the same time this dynamic—him yelling, me being yelled at—was very familiar to me. As a kid, there was no escaping my dad and his rage, and nothing I could do to soothe it.”

In this passage, Onwuachi is degraded by the chef de cuisine for pausing to look around the kitchen. The violent outburst for such a small offense reminded Onwuachi of his father’s outbursts, sometimes completely unprompted. In both instances, men in positions of power used anger to compel fear and obedience.

“The brigade system ensures that food gets to the plate looking pretty; it also gives free range to rage-inclined pricks to indulge their worst impulses. The anger was like a black mold in the air ducts, infecting everything.”

Onwuachi challenges the fundamental operations of fine-dining kitchens, which rely on a hierarchical system that places the chef de cuisine at the top of the chain. Onwuachi suggests that this system perpetuates the violent exercise of power and advances discrimination. Because the brigade system creates a framework within which some have power and others do not, it becomes a breeding ground for discrimination and inequality.

“I could feel it. The most insidious kind of racism isn’t always being called the N-word.”

Onwuachi calls attention to the many examples of covert racism he experienced while working in restaurant kitchens and as a chef. While few people overtly used racial slurs or stereotypes, many used veiled comments to oppress and control. In this example, the chef at Eleven Madison Park treated Onwuachi in a way that implied racism but was never blatant enough to pinpoint.

“There was great irony in Flint echoing what my grandfather had said about my ancestors when I was living with him in Nigeria: ‘Your ancestors will never leave you. They are part of who you are.’”

Chef Flint told Onwuachi that his “ancestors” were the chefs—all white—who paved the way for the next generations of chefs. Onwuachi notes the irony of this statement when placed side-by-side with his grandfather’s remarks about carrying his ancestors with him. Chef Flint did not understand what Onwuachi did: that food was about connection, identity, and story. Onwuachi’s story was not the story of Keller or Escoffier. His was the story of his mother, grandfather, and friends.

“[I]t occurred to me that perhaps it was precisely because I didn’t know who I was when no one was watching that I sought the spotlight so hard, spending those early mornings in the green room at Chopped, fantasizing about becoming a star.”

As Onwuachi examines his process of self-discovery, he shows many versions and sides of his personality. While on Top Chef, Onwuachi took long walks alone, but the time alone felt strange. He knew who he was in front of the camera, but the person away from the camera was like a stranger. He had not yet learned that he was the combination of many identities; the person he was when he was alone was a collection of many people, each contributing something unique to his character.

“‘The problem is, Kwame, and I hate to say it, but America isn’t ready for a black chef who makes this kind of food.’

‘What kind?’ I asked.

‘Fine dining: velouté. What the world wants to see is a black chef making black food, you know. Fried chicken and cornbread and collards.’”

Onwuachi’s time on Top Chef gave viewers the opportunity to participate in what he had been working on his entire life: understanding his own identity. Onwuachi knew that American audiences had expectations for Black chefs; he was told by the producers that viewers wanted to see Black chefs cooking Southern food. However, this was not who Onwuachi was at his core. Southern food certainly played a role, but it was not the all-encompassing determiner of his character.

“The second, more important, lesson I had learned from my experience with Dinner Lab was that my life story could actually be translated into food and that audiences, guests, diners, wanted to consume both.”

Dinner Lab provided Onwuachi with the chance to refine his brand. He learned to express his identity through the dishes he prepared and took diners on a journey through his experiences growing up in the Bronx and Africa. All parts of his life were represented. The worry that diners could not understand a menu that drew on many regions melted away as they latched onto Onwuachi’s unique story. He felt that this was what he was meant to do—tell stories. Food was merely a vehicle to making that happen.

“[H]e turned to me and out of the blue said, ‘Your restaurant’s gonna fail, homeboy!’ in a tone that was playful, but just barely. […] Adding a ‘homeboy’ to it just wasn’t going to stand. It wasn’t as bad as calling me ‘boy,’ but it was in the same vein, threading race, if not racism, into a taunt.”

This passage represents another example of covert racism. The use of the word “homeboy,” while not explicitly racist, is racialized in a way that in context implies racism. Onwuachi’s presence in the food scene of Washington, DC, was a challenge to those who felt a young Black man did not have the right to pursue his dream.

“I had found a new way to lead that felt more authentic, that involved listening as much as it did commanding.”

Kwame reflects on the type of leader he was at Shaw Bijou. His approach stands in stark contrast to his experiences at Per Se and Eleven Madison Park. In these restaurants, he worked under leaders who felt that it was their job to yell and exert power. Onwuachi wanted to create a kitchen that held lofty standards while also elevating and amplifying all voices in the kitchen.