Chef Kwame Onwuachi’s Newest Restaurant Is a Caribbean Steakhouse in Las Vegas

When Kwame Onwuachi speaks about meals, he’s not simply crafting menus—he’s conjuring reminiscence, migration, and resistance. The Prime Chef star and James Beard Award recipient is a storyteller who shapes his dishes round historical past and heritage. Now, Onwuachi is bringing his imaginative and prescient to Las Vegas with Maroon, an Afro-Caribbean steakhouse at Sahara Las Vegas.

Onwuachi’s imaginative and prescient for the restaurant is to reimagine the traditional American steakhouse via the lens of Caribbean delicacies. There shall be jerk rubs and dry-aged cuts, live-fire cooking, scotch bonnet-infused sauces, grilled seafood, and vibrant sides rooted in West African, Jamaican, and Creole traditions. It’s advantageous eating grounded in cultural reminiscence.

However for Onwuachi, Maroon is greater than a restaurant. It’s a reclamation of historical past and tradition via the lens of advantageous eating—and all of it begins with nomenclature. The title Maroon is a reference to the Maroons of Jamaica—descendants of enslaved Africans who escaped bondage and created self-sufficient communities in Jamaica’s Blue Mountains. “The Maroons didn’t simply run,” Onwuachi advised Journey + Leisure. “They thrived. They created one thing new, one thing highly effective, out of ache and resistance. That vitality—that story—is what this restaurant is about.”

“This isn’t nearly meals,” he added. “It’s about telling the tales that haven’t been advised. It’s about honoring a legacy and recognizing that the meals we’re placing on these plates has a deeper that means. It’s not only a meal—it’s historical past, it’s resilience, and it’s a testomony to the energy of those that got here earlier than us.”

Onwuachi is not any stranger to constructing a restaurant that turns into a cultural second. His New York Metropolis flagship, Tatiana by Kwame Onwuachi, opened at Lincoln Middle in late 2022 and shortly turned a sensation. (In each 2023 and 2024, it was ranked the No. 1 restaurant in New York Metropolis by The New York Instances, topping its annual checklist of the town’s 100 greatest eating places.) His new Washington, D.C. mission, Dōgon, can also be incomes large acclaim.

That’s precisely what he hopes to do in Las Vegas. Maroon would be the signature culinary anchor of Sahara Las Vegas’s ongoing evolution—a resort that has quietly however deliberately repositioned itself as a vacation spot for considerate luxurious.

“We had been intentional in deciding on Kwame Onwuachi as our accomplice for the subsequent chapter of Sahara Las Vegas’ culinary journey,” Sahara proprietor Alex Meruelo advised T+L. “His incomparable fusion of storytelling, tradition, and excellent delicacies is uniquely charming. Maroon is not going to solely advance chef Kwame’s private imaginative and prescient but in addition revolutionize the present steakhouse expertise on the Strip and past.”

In a metropolis with dozens of luxurious steakhouses—most modeled on traditional American or European eating traditions—Onwuachi’s take stands aside. It’s not simply that the flavors are completely different; it’s that the aim is completely different.

Maroon can also be the primary idea on the Strip led by a Black chef-owner, rooted in diasporic delicacies, and designed from the bottom as much as characterize a broader cultural imaginative and prescient. However Onwuachi is fast to notice that illustration alone isn’t the endgame. “It’s not nearly being the primary,” he stated. “It’s about ensuring we’re not the final. It’s about opening the door after which holding it open for others.”

This ethos extends past the kitchen. At Patty Palace in Queens, Onwuachi sells Miri, a glowing water model he based to help clear water initiatives in Nigeria. A portion of the earnings from each bottle bought goes immediately towards constructing wells in underserved communities. “The purpose is all the time to create one thing that leaves a optimistic mark,” he stated. “Whether or not it’s via meals or philanthropy, it’s about affect.”

As Las Vegas continues to evolve from a playground of extravagance right into a metropolis with rising cultural nuance, Maroon feels completely timed. Las Vegas has all the time been a spot for giant names and massive ideas, however the Strip hasn’t typically been a spot the place meals carries this type of weight. Maroon is poised to shift that stability. Its arrival is a sign that the eating panorama is shifting towards one thing extra inclusive, extra rooted, extra actual.

For Onwuachi, this subsequent chapter is a return to origins, and a manner of bringing previous and future into one place. “Meals is reminiscence,” he stated. “It’s how we keep in mind who we’re—and the way we present the world what we are able to turn out to be.”

Vacationers descending on Las Vegas this 12 months will undoubtedly discover all the standard thrills, however at Sahara, they’ll additionally discover one thing soulful, formidable, and lengthy overdue. A seat at Maroon shall be an invite to expertise a narrative advised in hearth, taste, and freedom.