Kwame Onwuachi

A competitor on Top Chef season 13 in California, Kwame Onwuachi is a James Beard Award-winning chef and author of Notes from a Young Black Chef.  He was born on Long Island and raised in New York City, Nigeria and Louisiana. Kwame was first exposed to cooking by his mother, in the family’s modest Bronx apartment, and he took that spark of passion and turned it into a career. From toiling in the bowels of oil cleanup ships to working at some of the best restaurants in the world, he has seen and lived his fair share of diversity. Kwame trained at the Culinary Institute of America and opened five restaurants before turning 30, including the groundbreaking Afro-Caribbean restaurant, Kith/Kin. Since competing on Top Chef, he has been named one of FOOD & WINE’s Best New Chefs, Esquire Magazine’s 2019 Chef of the Year, and a 30 Under 30 honoree by both Zagat and Forbes.