4 Chefs To Follow for African & Caribbean Flavors

Lists Living

Published by Gugulethu Nxumalo at December 16, 2025

Kwame Onwuachi – Nigerian, Jamaican, Trinidadian, American (Bronx & Louisiana).

Kwame Onwuachi’s food is a living tapestry of his family’s story. Born in New York to parents of Jamaican, Nigerian, Trinidadian, and Creole heritage, he grew up eating the rich, bold dishes of the Caribbean diaspora and West Africa.

At his restaurant Tatiana in Washington, D.C., and previously at Tatiana in NYC, Onwuachi transforms soul food and Afro‑Caribbean classics into refined creations. His jollof rice channels the vibrant rice dish he remembers from family celebrations, layered with spices and served with succulent proteins. Check out his Mom Duke’s shrimp here.

His egusi dumplings bring West African tradition into elegant form, while braised oxtails and perfectly smoky jerk chicken pay homage to his Jamaican roots. Other favorites, like ackee & saltfish and curried goat with GBD potatoes, recall meals from home and the streets of the Bronx and Kingston.

For Onwuachi, every dish reflects family and lineage. He once said he chose to lean into his heritage in his cooking because it felt truest to who he is and would make his family proud

Pierre Thiam – Senegalese

Senegalese chef Pierre Thiam has made it his mission to bring West African cuisine to the world. Born and raised in Dakar, he eventually arrived in the U.S. and realized the food of his youth was rarely represented in global dining.

In his New York restaurant Teranga, and through his brand Yolélé, Thiam showcases dishes rooted in Senegalese heritage. His take on jollof fonio, swapping rice for the tiny, nutty African grain fonio, reimagines a West African classic in a way that feels bright, modern, and deeply rooted in tradition. Other dishes reflect the soulful cuisine of his childhood include black‑eyed pea salad accented with lime and ginger, spicy caramelized plantains (kelewele), and bowls built on red palm–coconut rice with seared chicken.

Beyond restaurants, Thiam’s cookbooks and advocacy elevate ingredients like fonio, a staple from his home, and ensure their presence in global kitchens, supporting farmers and cultural heritage at the same time.

Chef Irie – Jamaican

Jamaican chef Hugh “Chef Irie” Sinclair has spent years bringing Caribbean food to audiences across the U.S. through Taste The Islands, one of the first Caribbean cooking series on PBS

His episodes highlight dishes that shaped his Jamaican upbringing, such as snapper ceviche paired with plantain chips, pan‑grilled jerk pork medallions, and callaloo soup, each infused with Scotch bonnet peppers, citrus, and island herbs.

Chef Irie blends tropical fruits, spices, and fresh seafood with flair, inviting viewers to taste the Caribbean the way he knows it: rich, bold, and deeply connected to community.

Illyanna Maisonet Puerto Rica

Illyanna Maisonet is a chef, storyteller, food historian, and award‑winning author. She was the first Puerto Rican food columnist in the United States with her Cocina Boricua column in the San Francisco Chronicle. Here she documented recipes and foodways from Puerto Rican communities across the diaspora.

Maisonet grew up in Sacramento, California, cooking alongside her mother, Carmen, and her grandmother, Margarita. Food wasn’t a luxury, it was survival, comfort, and culture passed down through tough times. That upbringing shaped her view of cooking as a way to preserve heritage.

Her debut book is Diasporican: A Puerto Rican Cookbook. It became a 2023 James Beard Award winner, thus reflecting her life’s work. It blends memoir with rigorous culinary research and over 90 deeply personal recipes, many collected from her grandmother and mother.

These chefs do more than innovate as they translate culture. They do this by bringing family recipes, regional traditions, and ancestral wisdom into today’s culinary scene. That work preserves history and expands how the world understands African and Caribbean food.