Notes from a Young Black Chef

December 1, 2020

Gr 7 Up-Onwuachi, a former Top Chef contestant and renowned American chef who was born on Long Island, NY, bares his heart in this YA adaptation of his 2019 memoir. He details the struggles, inspirations, and choices from the past that led to the present. The work speaks with conviction, introspection, and frankness, which is an appealing combination for young adult readers. The text doesn't seek to impress the audience, but rather aims to teach and speak the author's truth. From the ordinary to the inspired, moments from Onwuachi's childhood to young adulthood play out like recorded videos, revealing the people, dishes, and conversations swirling in his memory. These memories include snapshots of his family to experiences of racial discrimination to cultural judgments in the culinary world, which are portrayed with a sincere purpose and reflect his reality as a young Black chef. His personal and professional journey showcases a heartfelt desire to create and connect. VERDICT Onwuachi candidly declares how the weight of the trials he experienced impacted his story and fortified his culinary dreams, with an intensive reflection of family roots, aspirations, and expectations.-Rachel Mulligan, Pennsylvania State Univ.

Copyright 2020 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 15, 2021
This YA adaptation of a critically acclaimed 2019 memoir by the same title--which is also being adapted for film--chronicles the perseverance and hustle of rising star chef Onwuachi. Growing up between New York City, Nigeria, and Louisiana, he was able to turn away from troublesome youthful temptation, instead embracing a love of cooking and beginning an entrepreneurial life in the kitchen. His unconventional path to the top tier of fine dining, a rare perch for an African American chef, included selling candy on the subway to save up to start his first catering company. This text covers the challenges of experiencing discrimination in an industry stacked against cultural outsiders and finding resolve in laying claim to the diasporic inheritances that make one unique. Young readers will walk away with strategies to confront, heal, and grow from failure: Beyond tantalizing stories of ingredients and cooking techniques, Onwuachi's journey points to the ambitious grit required to carve one's own path and the beloved community that must come together to see one achieve their potential. No man in the kitchen stands on his own island. "I know that if I cook this food, food that is in me already, the world will come to eat it. All I have to do is stay true to myself, to be the Kwame I am when no one is looking," he concludes. Enough sizzle, color, and character to entice young readers. (Memoir. 12-18)

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July 1, 2021
When chef Kwame Onwuachi opened his high-end (if ultimately ill-fated) restaurant Shaw Bijou atop the then-new National Museum of African American History and Culture, the significance of the moment was not lost on him. He knew he was "standing on stories," including those recalled by exhibits of whips and shackles and a stack of bricks the height of a man, each representing a person enslaved by Thomas Jefferson. As a Black chef in America, Onwuachi intends to keep the history alive, from Africa, the Middle Passage, and all of the "thousands of black and brown chefs -- called cooks, domestics, servants, boys, and mammies who were kept out of restaurant kitchens (or overlooked within them)." He traces the influences that led him from Bronx streets and projects, to Louisiana, to Nigeria, to an oil clean-up ship in the Gulf of Mexico, to drug dealing in college, and on to the Culinary Institute of America, food competitions (including Top Chef), and Thomas Keller's acclaimed New York City restaurant Per Se. This adaptation for young readers effectively prunes and tightens sentences, removes swear words, and takes out the recipes (as etouffee, chicken consomme, corn veloute, and egusi stew might not be big draws for young palates). While Onwuachi notes the challenges of being a Black chef in a white food culture, his dream is to see kitchens full of "white, yellow, brown, and black faces" and restaurants full of "brown and black diners, who, looking at their plates, feel seen, celebrated, and recognized." Dean Schneider

(Copyright 2021 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

July 1, 2021
When chef Kwame Onwuachi opened his high-end (if ultimately ill-fated) restaurant Shaw Bijou atop the then-new National Museum of African American History and Culture, the significance of the moment was not lost on him. He knew he was "standing on stories," including those recalled by exhibits of whips and shackles and a stack of bricks the height of a man, each representing a person enslaved by Thomas Jefferson. As a Black chef in America, Onwuachi intends to keep the history alive, from Africa, the Middle Passage, and all of the "thousands of black and brown chefs -- called cooks, domestics, servants, boys, and mammies who were kept out of restaurant kitchens (or overlooked within them)." He traces the influences that led him from Bronx streets and projects, to Louisiana, to Nigeria, to an oil clean-up ship in the Gulf of Mexico, to drug dealing in college, and on to the Culinary Institute of America, food competitions (including Top Chef), and Thomas Keller's acclaimed New York City restaurant Per Se. This adaptation for young readers effectively prunes and tightens sentences, removes swear words, and takes out the recipes (as etouffee, chicken consomme, corn veloute, and egusi stew might not be big draws for young palates). While Onwuachi notes the challenges of being a Black chef in a white food culture, his dream is to see kitchens full of "white, yellow, brown, and black faces" and restaurants full of "brown and black diners, who, looking at their plates, feel seen, celebrated, and recognized."

(Copyright 2021 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

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.