James Beard Award-winning Chef Kwame Onwuachi will finally bring his renowned cooking talents to the West Coast with the opening of his new steakhouse at SAHARA Las Vegas.
After dominating the East Coast with his hot spot eateries, New York’s Tatiana and Washington, D.C.’s Dōgon, Onwuachi will debut Maroon, a new steakhouse inspired by his signature fusion of Afro-Caribbean jerk cooking methods. The Bronx native caught the attention of the SAHARA Las Vegas team, who invited him to develop a brand-new dining concept for the hotel, an announcement revealed.
Onwuachi, who has opened or owned several restaurants, including Shaw Bijou and Kith and Kin, is looking forward to bringing his revolutionary cooking talents to the famed Las Vegas Strip.
“I am excited for this next chapter and the opportunity to bring a new culinary concept to SAHARA Las Vegas and the city’s dynamic food scene,” he said.
The partnership marks another milestone in Onwuachi’s celebrated culinary career, which includes acclaimed restaurants, bestselling books, a standout run on season 13 of Top Chef, and honors from Food & Wine, Esquire, and the James Beard Foundation for being the “Rising Star Chef of the Year” in 2019.
“We have closely followed Chef Onwuachi’s career and deeply admire the significant impact he has had in New York City and Washington, D.C., where he has redefined the dining scene with his acclaimed cuisine,” said Paul Hobson, general manager of SAHARA Las Vegas. “At SAHARA, he will connect with a whole new audience, and we are honored to welcome him.”
Maroon’s menu will spotlight live-fire cooking, jerk rubs, dry-aged cuts, scotch bonnet–infused sauces, grilled seafood, and sides rooted in West African, Jamaican, and Creole traditions. Fans of Onwuachi’s Afro-Caribbean flair — seen at Tatiana and Dōgon — will find plenty to savor in his West Coast debut. The restaurant also marks a continued rise in Black-owned culinary ventures on the Las Vegas Strip, joining names like Emmitt Smith’s Steakhouse.
Onwuachi named the new steakhouse after the Maroons of Jamaica, enslaved Africans who escaped captivity and built independent communities in the Blue Mountains. It’s a powerful history that Onwuachi explored in his book, My America: Recipes from a Young Black Chef.
“There they lived a hardscrabble existence, eking out a life from subsistence farming and occasional raids on the British occupiers,” he wrote.
In his book, Onwuachi details how the Maroons blended Jamaican pepper, Thai bird chili, wild thyme, and wild hog to create the iconic jerk flavor we know today.
“Jerk was born, and it lives still two hundred years later,” the book states.
Chef Kwame Onwuachi’s Maroon at SAHARA Las Vegas is set to open in late 2025.
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