Notes from a Young Black Chef

April 1, 2022

Gr 7 Up-Narrator Malik Rashad isn't quite Onwuachi, who ideally narrated his original 2019 memoir-but here, that's not necessarily a liability for younger audiences who might need a smidge more animation. Rashad affectingly channels Onwuachi, the self-described "black kid from the Bronx...bold, ambitious, maybe a little arrogant." Rashad is gentle when recalling Onwuachi's supportive mother; initially dismissive then actively inquisitive as Onwuachi discovers his ancestral heritage in Nigeria with his paternal grandfather and extended family; aching as he recounts Onwuachi's repetitive disappointments because of his abusive father; truculent as Onwuachi fights for respect as an accomplished chef. What should have been an auspicious debut for talented Rashad, however, is ruined by lazy production glitches, his hard work especially overshadowed by countless clumsy insertions of phrases and sentences. VERDICT Alas, for aural purists, the annoyances are likely enough to resort to the page.

Copyright 2022 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from March 11, 2019
Chef and former Top Chef contestant Onwuachi wonderfully chronicles the amazing arc of his life, beginning with his challenging Bronx childhood in the 1990s with his African-American mother and his absentee Nigerian father. As a teen he began dealing drugs, and was later sent to Nigeria to live with his grandfather in order to “get out of my mother’s hair.” He returned to live with his mother, who had moved to Baton Rouge. There, he learned to cook at a local barbecue restaurant and took a job as a cook on an oil-spill response ship in the Gulf of Mexico; he eventually moved back to New York City, where Tom Colicchio hired him at Craft. In 2016, he opened his restaurant Shaw Bijou in Washington, D.C., which for him represented “years of busting my ass, of constant forward movement, of grasping opportunities manufactured to be beyond my grasp.” For his customers, he writes, “I had found a way to convert, through food, not just the warmth and love of my upbringing but also the struggles I’d faced.” Onwuachi includes Pan-African recipes throughout, inspired by the flavors of the African continent, the Caribbean, and the U.S., such as egusi stew and chicken and waffles. In the vein of Marcus Samuelsson’s Yes, Chef, this is a solid and inspiring memoir.