Guests watched in anticipation as a platter of curried branzino sailed to long rustic tables inside Salamander Resort’s tented patio. They gathered in Middleburg for the fourth annual Family Reunion, an event where culinary luminaries and fans meet for food and fellowship.
These diners received an exclusive preview of the new DMV restaurant, Dōgon by Kwame Onwuachi , which opens September 9 at the Salamander Washington DC at The Wharf. Onwauchi and hospitality business leader Sheila Johnson are founders of The Family Reunion where African American and Caribbean chefs serve their signature dishes over four days of activities.
Dōgon is the newest collaboration between close friends Onwuachi and Johnson, founder and CEO of the Salamander hotels. Enthusiasts of the celebrity chef are abuzz at his return to the DMV. At his former DC restaurant Kith/Kin, Onwauchi first explored his family’s roots in Nigeria, Jamaica, and New Orleans. He left the restaurant in 2020, and in 2022, Onwauchi opened the acclaimed Tatiana in New York’s Lincoln Center. Tatiana was named The New York Times’s No. 1 restaurant in 2023 and 2024.
His close relationship with Johnson, is a key reason Onwauchi is returning to the area. “One hundred percent,” he agrees when I spoke to him at The Family Reunion. But Onwauchi also has deep ties to the area. “As a child, I spent summers in DC with my grandfather, a professor of Pan African studies at Howard University, who shared his passion for the city with me.”
For Family Reunion guests, the Dōgon lunch offered the opportunity to sample Onwauchi’s new Afro-Caribbean dishes, including curried branzino, BBQ greens, and mushroom étouffée.
Dōgon’s chef de cuisine Martel Stone was in Middleburg supervising lunch. The two chefs have been working together for eight years. “I’m so honored to be working with you on this project; I couldn’t appreciate you anymore,” Onwauchi says when he introduces Stone at the Family Reunion. In recent years, Stone was an enthusiastic competitor on Food Network shows Chopped, Alex vs. America, and Guy’s Grocery Games.
Stone says the two chefs amassed ideas during their recent travels. For example, the curried branzino, with tail splayed over the side, was inspired by their trip to the Cayman Islands.
“We stopped in a little café where they served fish stuffed with callaloo, mustard greens, and collards,” he says. In the Dōgon version, they’re using steamed tail-on branzino with calabash pumpkin, kabocha squash, coconut milk, okra, Trinidadian green seasoning, and they thicken the sauce with a creole shrimp stock.
For the BBQ greens, Onwauchi tweaked his grandfather’s recipe: a confit of cippolini onions, chunks of beef bacon with habanero, roasted garlic, and vinegar. “The strands of collards and mustard greens are reminiscent of pulling up strings of pasta. A little might splash on your face,” Stone laughs.
The mushroom étouffée is a sultry combination of lion’s mane, oyster, king, and maitake mushrooms cooked in a black truffle base, sprinkled with shaves of black winter truffles. “Here we forgo the cream from traditional étouffée, using garlic, ginger, and onions, plus the creole ‘Holy Trinity,’” says Stone. “Seeing the food come to life here for the first time is one of the most anxious but exciting moments for me.”
Mixologist Derek Brown created Dōgon’s craft cocktail menu. The author of Mindful Mixology: A Comprehensive Guide to No- and Low-Alcohol Cocktails with 60 Recipes, Brown will highlight black-owned spirits and drinks.
Pronounced “DOH-gon,” the restaurant is named for DC Surveyor Benjamin Banneker who traced his heritage to the West African Dōgon tribe. There’s a memorial to Benjamin Banneker near The Wharf, marking the site where he charted the boundaries of Washington DC in 1791.
Dōgon will be open Tuesday through Saturday for dinner from 5 to 10 pm.
1330 Maryland Ave SW, Washington, DC, salamanderdc.com/dining/dogon
Feature image of steamed branzino by Scott Suchman
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