“An Evening with Chef Kwame Onwuachi,” June 22

Wednesday, June 22, 7 p.m.

Presented by the Rock Island Public Library

Recognized by Food & Wine magazine, Esquire, and the James Beard Foundation as "Rising Star Chef of the Year," an author and former contestant on season 13 of Top Chef will make a virtual appearance in a June 22 program at the Rock Island Public Library, with An Evening with Kwame Onwuachi finding the celebrity discussing his exciting career in food as chronicled in the man's bestselling memoir Notes from a Young Black Chef.

Born on Long Island, New York, and currently residing in Los Angeles, Onwuachi, as he states in his memoir, was expelled from several schools for behavioral issues before graduating from a high school in the Bronx. He enrolled at the University of Bridgeport, from which he was also expelled after several months, and then moved to live with his mother in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where he was hired to cook on a boat, serving crews that were helping to clean up the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. He returned to New York City in 2010, waiting tables at Tom Colicchio's Craft before opening his own catering business he named Onwuachi's Coterie Catering. In 2012, Onwuachi enrolled at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York, and during his time in culinary school, the rising star worked an internship at Per Se before joining Eleven Madison Park as a line cook.

Following his 2015 run as a contestant on Top Chef, Onwuachi, in 2016, opened his own restaurant – Shaw Bijou – in a converted townhouse in Washington, D.C., serving a 13-course tasting menu. After receiving mixed reviews for the venue, Onwuachi scaled back on Shaw Bijou's menu and reduced prices, but the primary investor closed the restaurant the following January. In late 2017, however, Onwuachi opened a restaurant called Kith & Kim in the new InterContinental Hotel on D.C.'s Southwest Waterfront. With its menu of Afro-Caribbean cuisine influenced by his family ties to Louisiana, Jamaica, Trinidad, and Nigeria, the restaurant received positive reviews from the Washington Post and the Michelin Guide. Two years later, Onwuachi published his memoir Notes from a Young Black Chef (written with Joshua David Stein), which tells the story of his childhood and the opening of the Shaw Bijou, with the author's follow-up cookbook My America: Recipes from a Young Black Chef published just last month.

An Evening with Kwame Onwuachi will be presented on June 22, participation in the 7 p.m. online event is free, and more information is available by calling (309)732-7323 and visiting RockIslandLibrary.org.