Kwame Onwuachi’s celestial dining in DC

Kwame Onwuachi is riding high. With his New York restaurant, Tatiana firmly established as one of the best in the country, the Nigerian American chef has turned his attention to Washington DC and opened Dōgon, a new restaurant that draws on the chef’s passion for Nigerian, Jamaican, Trinidadian, and Creole cuisine, but which tells a distinct and powerful story.

Trying to get hold of Onwuachi is no easy task, the man is incredibly busy. When we eventually connect, he has just finished cooking at the White House and has only a few minutes as he rushes to prepare for service at Dōgon.

While not his first time cooking at the White House, it would be remiss of any journalist not to ask the chef what he cooked for guests, as the capital gears up for the most divisive election in generations.

“I did Creole shrimp with corn pudding,” says Onwuachi. “I did a fried chicken with Ethiopian spices, a chili honey on top, and a beautiful fluffy waffle. It was a brunch.”

Onwuachi is a storyteller as much as a chef, and this menu feels like a powerful message delivered to significant people at an important time. Food can transcend divisions and unite people. Onwuachi’s gift is to imbue his food with a message, a story, and even a connection with a people and a past that has been undervalued, persecuted, and marginalized for too long.

While Tatiana, named after his sister, recounts a deeply personal tale of growing up in Brooklyn, his family background, and his time spent connecting with his roots in Nigeria and Louisiana, told through his cuisine, Dōgon tells a different story, one that appropriately highlights a figure of national importance who left a permanent mark on the shape of the city of DC.

“It’s called Dōgon and it’s based on Benjamin Banneker’s legacy,” says Onwuachi. “Banneker was hired when DC was established as the new capital of the US, to survey the city and the borders. He was the son of a freed slave, and he knew how to map things based on the stars. That’s how we got the perfect diamond that is the city of DC.”

Banneker’s grandfather was of the Dogon tribe, based in Mali, and had been captured and enslaved. The Dogon people are distinct for their highly sophisticated culture, which set them apart as scientists and artists. Their evolved spirituality and understanding of the world and nature see them called one of West Africa’s most enigmatic tribes.

“Before colonization,” says Onwuachi, “Africa was tribal, there weren’t these straight lines and borders that you see today. There were tribes who lived connected to the land and each would have a specialization. Some were warriors, some were miners, and some were scientists. The Dogan tribe were scientists and astronomers.”

The Dogon’s understanding of the Cosmos was so sophisticated that modern historians and anthropologists are baffled at how they could have gleaned such knowledge with the naked eye. In particular, the tribe knew the star system Sirius, which consists of two separate stars, Sirius A and Sirius B. It wasn't until 1862 that American astronomer Alvan Clark deduced the existence of Sirius B using a telescope and not until 1970 that its existence was confirmed. Yet the Dogon people knew it hundreds of years before, calling it ‘Po Tolo.’ This ancient knowledge was passed down to Banneker, who employed it in surveying and mapping the original borders of the US capital, setting out 40 boundary stones at one-mile intervals to define the territory, weaving Dogon knowledge and culture into the physical cityscape.

“So, without that West African tribe, we wouldn’t have a capital of the United States as we have it today,” says Onwuachi. “I’m telling the story of Washington DC, but through an Afro-Caribbean lens. It’s those cultures that make it what it is.”

Banneker was more than an astrologer though, the self-taught polymath was a farmer, a mathematician, a naturalist, and almanac author. He corresponded with Thomas Jefferson on slavery and racial equality, long after his surveying work was complete. And while he has been recognized in the US, with, for example, a commemorative postage stamp, Onwuachi’s restaurant is a living, breathing homage to Banneker and his ancestors that invites us to connect through the medium of his cooking.

If Banneker was guided by the stars in plotting the boundaries of the city, perhaps there is something that guides Onwuachi on his journey to share these stories. From his teenage decision to leave all he knew behind in Brooklyn, to go to Nigeria to connect with his roots, to his decision to walk away from Kith/Kin, allowing him to sidestep the worst of the pandemic effects on the industry, to opening the right restaurant at the right time in New York and now DC… Onwuachi has impeccable timing. Is there something guiding him?

“I don’t know,” he says. “I would have to just praise God; I’m just living my life. I’m just trying to do my best, to get a little better than I was the day before. That’s really my mantra.  I try to do something interesting every year that I am afraid of, so I can really push my boundaries and push myself.

“I’m not a religious man, but I do believe in a higher power. I’m very grateful and I also work really, really hard. I think those two things together will bring you success, but you have to do the work. You can’t achieve anything unless you put in the hard work.”

If the medium is the message for Onwuachi and his storytelling, the chef offers his guests the chance to connect intimately with cultures and people, beyond time and space. He is telling their story in a unique way.

“I don’t know if I am,” he says. “I guess I am, I mean there are schools dedicated to things like this. These stories have been well told and I’m not trying to steal the light from people who have been talking about this for ages. I’m telling it through my lens, I guess. These stories have been told, but they haven’t been amplified. Nobody cares. I’m not the first person to tell this story, I’m not taking that credit.”

While other chefs may have capitalized on their fame by expanding their restaurant business earlier, one of the keys to Onwuachi’s success is that he does things for the right reasons. “I believe a restaurant has to have a story,” he says. “Because when it has a story, it has a soul”.

The menu at Dōgon is a presentation of Onwuachi's culinary influences. It may sound like a tired cliche to refer to Onwuachi's cooking as 'soul food,' but that is what it is. It is sophisticated and accessible, designed to unite people and promote conviviality and conversation. The food at Dōgon is to nourish the body and the spirit, with dishes like carrot tigua, with pickled onion, peanut crustacean stew, and burnt carrots or a mushroom etouffee with crispy mushrooms, truffle shrimp sauce, and chives. The flavors are bold and to the fore, and the evident technical skills of Onwuachi's team mean the dining experience can traverse the casual/fine-dining divide. Dishes like Mom Duke’s Shrimp with holy trinity, Frenchman butter, and malt bring authentic flavors and a respect for tradition that invites Washingtonians closer to the Afro-Caribbean cultures interwoven with their histories.

When asked about the first night of service and how it went, Onwuachi quickly gives full credit to his team. "We did 160 covers on opening night, and I've not seen that before in any restaurant," he says. "It's just so inspiring to work with this team and see how passionate they are. They care so much. It’s amazing to see them take what I do and elevate it”.

Appropriately, you could say that the stars have aligned for Onwuachi, in terms of his team. Working at Dōgon is chef Martel Stone, a culinary all-rounder with diverse experience from fine dining to mom-and-pop restaurants. A former Executive Sous Chef at Kith/Kin and a founder of The Black Supper Collective, Onwuachi has a serious talent to back him up at Dōgon. At the bar, nationally acclaimed mixologist Derek Brown has curated an outstanding cocktail menu.

At  Dōgon, Onwuachi has created a restaurant that feeds body, mind and soul, a rare and ambitious project. Of course, you wouldn’t expect anything less from this chef, authenticity is the key ingredient in his cooking, but also in everything he does.

“Anything I do has got to be intentional,” he says.