Notes from a Young Black Chef

Notes From a Young Black Chef: A Memoir tells the story of Kwame Onwuachi’s experiences growing up in New York and traces his journey from childhood to his successful career as a chef. In 2019, Onwuachi won Food & Wine’s “Best New Chef” Award and received the James Beard Award for “Rising Star Chef of the Year.” Onwuachi wrote this memoir with Joshua David Stein, an author and journalist with a history of food writing.

This guide refers to the 2020 Vintage Books first edition.

Kwame Onwuachi’s memoir tells the story of a man trying to find his identity. Onwuachi is known for his ability to tell his story through food: a story of hardship, struggle, survival, and success. This memoir translates a narrative he typically presents as fine-dining dishes into words and recounts his history from childhood to Top Chef fame. Onwuachi describes the many influences and paths that led to his career, including cooking in the kitchen with his mother, spending years in Africa with his grandfather, and selling drugs in college. Throughout the work, Onwuachi struggles with identity. He recognizes that there are different versions of himself, and, like a chameleon, he adapts his identity to fit each situation. As he navigates The Discovery of Identity, he allows his discoveries about the self to guide the dishes he creates as a chef. Notes From a Young Black Chef also examines the themes Anger and Power and Food as Connection and Story.

Content Warning: The source material discusses emotional and physical child abuse, drug use, gang violence, and racism.

Summary

Chapters 1-2 begin in the present. Onwuachi is about to open his first restaurant, Shaw Bijou, in the heart of Washington, DC. As he wrestles with pre-opening press and his own insecurities, he considers the stories and experiences that have brought him to this point. His parents, Jewel and Patrick, constantly fought, and food—especially egusi stew—was a way for them to connect. When they separated, Onwuachi toggled between two worlds: the comforting and warm kitchen of his mother and the cold and terrifying apartment of his father.

Chapters 3-5 reveal the beginning of Onwuachi’s rebellious nature. As a boy, he learned that others’ experiences were different from his own; his friends’ parents were loving toward their children and one another. Onwuachi resented his struggles and the discrimination he experienced at school. He began to act out and treat his mother with disrespect. Jewel sent Onwuachi to visit his grandfather in Africa. He stayed in Nigeria two years, immersing himself in the culture and the food. There, he learned that he carries his ancestors with him wherever he goes. When he returned home, he fell into his old ways and made friends with other boys who were involved in gang activity. Onwuachi, already accustomed to fear, became acquainted with violence. While in college, Onwuachi began dealing drugs and was kicked out. One day, after an extended period of partying, he decided to cook something that reminded him of his mother and of home—a chicken curry. He felt grounded by this small act and asked his mother if he could move back in with her.

In Chapters 6-7, Onwuachi details the beginnings of his restaurant career. He was quickly forced to confront the discrimination and racism in many restaurant kitchens. Struggling to make ends meet, Onwuachi jumped at the opportunity to cook on a ship for workers cleaning up oceanic oil spills. At first, he hated the job. The food they served was pre-prepared and frozen. One day, he took the reins on a meal and decided to serve a Southern classic he knew the workers would enjoy. For the first time, he saw how food helped people feel rooted and connected and how it allowed him to find commonality with those who came from diverse backgrounds and experiences. When he finished, he decided to start his own catering business, funding the operation by selling candy on the subway. He then obtained a position as a server at an elite restaurant, giving him his first taste of fine dining.

Chapters 8-10 detail Onwuachi’s time at the Culinary Institute of America. There, he learned the fundamentals. His stage at the restaurant Per Se taught him a lot about the kind of chef he wanted to be, but it also taught him about the kind of chef he did not want to be. He rejected the traditionalist viewpoint that chefs had to pay their dues and get yelled at to become great and instead pursued his own version of a culinary career. As he began to gain national attention, offers to open restaurants started rolling in.

In the final chapters, Onwuachi shares what it was like to appear on the hit television reality show Top Chef. He used the momentum from the show to open his own restaurant in Washington, DC. However, a rocky relationship with his partners and one negative review caused the restaurant to close a few short months after it opened, just as it was beginning to gain traction. Onwuachi collected himself and everything that had happened, allowing his history to inform and shape his personal identity and ambition. He determined that the best he could offer was to be himself.