(From left) Sheila Johnson and Kwame Onwuachi on The Family Reunion Festival site in Middleburg (Photo by Eric Stein courtesy Salamander Hotels & Resorts)
Kwame Onwuachi has cooking in his genes. His godmother owned a restaurant, and so did his great-grandmother. The New York native’s earliest memories involve standing next to his mother on a stool in their one-bedroom apartment as she cooked.
“Those are where the lessons are really passed down,” says Onwuachi, 31, “and those are the moments that inspired me to cook.”
He also remembers standing in front of what he describes as “a boardroom of people that didn’t look like [him]" and having his idea for the celebrated Afro-Caribbean restaurant Kith and Kin met with resistance, and then being encouraged to cook Mediterranean food instead.
“I said to them, ‘My name is Kwame Onwuachi. If you don't want me to cook my food, I’ll leave,’ and I really had to put my foot down,” shares the James Beard Award-winning chef.
The former “Top Chef" contestant says this experience was nothing new, and that he has experienced and witnessed subliminally racist jokes, bigotry and sexism at all levels in the field.
“My whole career was riddled with potholes in the lane of racism and bigotry,” says Onwuachi, who left Kith and Kin in 2020 in search of new ventures.
Now Onwuachi hopes to change the landscape of the industry, and part of the recipe to do so is through The Family Reunion Festival, a four-day affair aimed at amplifying and celebrating diversity that will be held Aug. 19-22 at the Salamander Resort & Spa in Middleburg.
While Onwuachi says the vision for a food festival had always been there, like many great things in life, it came to fruition through a series of chance events. After speaking at a conference about his memoir, “Notes From a Young Black Chef,” Onwuachi was approached by Sheila Johnson, a seasoned entrepreneur, co-founder of BET and the only African American woman to wholly own a Forbes Five-Star resort.
Together, they are working to showcase Black excellence throughout the hospitality industry with a multiday celebration of "Black and Brown cooking traditions that have shaped American cuisine," while also encouraging dialogue, connection and understanding over food.
“What happens at family reunions is you get together, and maybe you’re a little shy at first because you haven’t seen everyone in a long time, but in the end, you come as friends and leave as family, and that’s really what we’re trying to achieve,” Onwuachi says.
In 2019, he was named Rising Star Chef of the Year by the James Beard Foundation, which were canceled for 2020 and 2021 due to allegations of blatant racism and a lack of Black winners over the course of its history. The event is slated to return in 2022 and, according to the organization, will undergo an audit of its policies and procedures.
“There’s a whole industry out there that doesn’t have a lot of chefs of color to look up to, and it’s my duty to keep pushing and keep striving for greatness and go further and further and show the next generation, you can even be better than me,” Onwuachi says.
Capped at 200 tickets, the festival is intentionally intimate. Drawing from years spent organizing and attending food events, seminars and dinners, Onwuachi, who’s also the executive producer for Food & Wine magazine, says he has curated his dream festival.
The bill includes guests ranging from food historian and award-winning journalist Jessica B. Harris and TV personality and chef Carla Hall to master sommelier Carlton McCoy and legendary pitmaster Rodney Scott. Onwuachi says he is looking forward to the Town of Middleburg Restaurant Takeover, where rising culinary stars Ashleigh Shanti of the pop-up Good Hot Fish in Asheville, North Carolina; private chef and caterer Tiana Gee; Rashida Holmes of Bridgetown Roti in Los Angeles; and Dawn Burrell of Lucille’s Hospitality in Houston will helm the kitchen for the night at various establishments.
“It’s four women of color cooking different types of cuisine and showcasing that the Black experience is not monolithic,” Onwuachi says.
Events throughout the inaugural festival range from family-style lunches and cookouts to wine tastings, along with a dive into the history of the West African street food suya and a night market with African dishes, dancers and drummers. Onwuachi says the goal is to spotlight the power of diversity, and for attendees to leave inspired by the stories, and food they have consumed.
“I think this is something that will become bigger than anything we ever hoped and dreamed for, and that people connect on a deeper and more spiritual level — that’s what reunions are about,” Onwuachi says.
And just like when he stood by his concept for Kith and Kin, no longer letting the mainstream culinary world suppress the recipes rooted in his heritage, he believes the future of food is about doing the same thing: standing one's ground and tapping into ancestry.
“You can’t ignore your history anymore,” Onwuachi says. “The future is people embracing their heritage and putting that at the forefront, not the things they’ve been taught, [but] the things they’ve inherited.”
To purchase tickets for The Family Reunion Festival, visit salamanderhotels.com/familyreunion.
