Chef Kwame Onwuachi is looking to the stars as he plans to return to Washington this spring. The James Beard Award-winning chef’s new Afro-Caribbean restaurant, Dogon, will live inside the Salamander D.C. hotel near the Wharf and is inspired by Benjamin Banneker, the Black cartographer, almanac writer and mathematician who helped survey the city of D.C. in the late 18th century.
When Sheila Johnson, the owner of the Salamander properties, approached Onwuachi about the space, located in the former Mandarin Oriental, he immediately began considering the history of D.C.
“I really looked at the land — that’s what I like to do,” he said. “My mantra is, if something has a story, it has a soul. What was there before?”
He decided to center Banneker after researching the history of L’Enfant Plaza — named for the first cartographer of D.C., Pierre Charles L’Enfant. This story brought him to Banneker, a Black man who is credited with mapping the borders of the District using the location of the stars. Banneker’s use of the stars in his work calls back to his grandfather, an enslaved man who historians believe was from the Dogon people of Mali and Burkina Faso, both in West Africa.
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Inspired by the way the Dogon people used the stars, especially the Sirius constellation, to create maps, Onwuachi decided to trace his own map between West Africa and D.C. via the restaurant. His goal is to infuse subtle references to D.C.’s history and culture into his signature style of cooking that draws from his Nigerian, Jamaican, Louisianian Creole and Trinidadian heritage.
Though he was raised in the Bronx, Onwuachi’s journey as a restaurateur began with the Shaw Bijou, a tasting menu-based restaurant located in the Shaw neighborhood of Northwest Washington. Less than six months after its 2016 opening, the Shaw Bijou closed and Onwuachi moved to the Wharf to cook at Kith and Kin. The menu also drew on Onwuachi’s beloved Afro-Caribbean cultures for inspiration. In the meantime, he opened two locations of his high-end cheesesteak shop, Philly Wing Fry, the first as a pop-up in a Whole Foods and the second as a stall in Union Market, both of which closed in 2019. The same year, he became one of Food and Wine Magazine’s best new chefs, was recognized as the rising star chef of the year by the James Beard Foundation and published his first book, “Notes From a Young Black Chef.”
Amid this winning streak and the pandemic, Onwuachi moved back to his native New York to open Tatiana, another Afro-Caribbean fusion restaurant whose menu celebrates the diversity of Manhattan and serves as an ode to his sister, for whom the restaurant was named. Within a year of its opening, Tatiana earned widespread acclaim — the New York Times declared it the best restaurant in the city, among other praises. Now, within 18 months of Tatiana’s opening, Onwuachi is returning to the Wharf with Dogon.
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“The D.C. community [has] always been so great to me, and being a part of that community is one of the highlights I’m looking forward to,” Onwuachi said in a recent Zoom interview.
Share this articleShareOnwuachi’s ties to D.C. extend beyond just his restaurants. His grandfather was a professor at Howard University, and with aunts, uncles and cousins in the area, Onwuachi has long considered D.C. a “second home.” When Johnson, the hotelier, approached him in 2021 to discuss opening a restaurant at the Salamander D.C., he jumped at the idea. He has hosted the Family Reunion, a celebration of diversity and inclusion in the restaurant industry, at Salamander’s Middleburg, Va., location since 2021, and looks forward to continuing his partnership with Johnson, whose work he has long admired. Another major reason he joined the project, he says, is that the business will be “Black-owned, top to bottom.”
Though the details of the menu are still in progress, he says diners can expect some of his “hits,” including plays on oxtail and Jamaican patties, but there will be no shortage of new dishes inspired by D.C.’s culture and history. The decor, of course, will be astronomy-themed, so while diners enjoy their meals, they can get a glimpse of what Banneker may have seen while mapping D.C.
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