Washington, D.C
Inside Celebrity Chef Kwame Onwuachi’s Long-Awaited Return to D.C.
Most chefs prefer to sit down to discuss their upcoming restaurant in the space itself. But Kwame Onwuachi isn’t most chefs. Instead, the national culinary icon insisted on talking while walking as he played a few rounds on D.C.’s East Potomac public golf course last week. Over the duration of his 5 p.m. tee time, the Top Chef star told Eater all about his anticipated return to D.C.’s Southwest Waterfront dining scene in September.
At his new Afro-Caribbean restaurant Dōgon (pronounced “Doh-gon”), opening at the foot of the 373-room Salamander Washington DC on Monday, September 9, Onwuachi pays homage to D.C.’s legendary land surveyor Benjamin Banneker and his ancestral ties to the Dōgon tribe. Onwuachi’s menu explores both his own Nigerian, Jamaican, Trinidadian, and Creole heritage and D.C.’s melting pot of cultures through a “West African lens.”
“Everything is meant to be shared,” says Onwuachi. “I’m taking inspiration from everything from Korean to Ethiopian [cuisines].”
While Dōgon won’t usually be open on Mondays, September 9 signifies the date when D.C. was formally named in 1791. Gold chain curtains surrounding the stunning, 200-seat dining room reference the mathematical device Banneker used to map out city lines (1330 Maryland Avenue SW).
Onwuachi is best known locally for his time at the Wharf InterContinental’s long-closed Kith/Kin, and Dōgon marks the celebrity chef and author’s second act inside a posh hotel along the scenic Potomac River.
“It’s so emotional to be back,” he admits, while sporting Dōgon’s new black-and-gold cap on the course. “There’s lots of memories here, good and bad — but there’s a homecoming feel at the same time, similar to when I went back to New York.”
He returned to his NY roots in 2022 with the blockbuster opening of Tatiana, a high-end ode to the Bronx carryouts of his youth. Long wait lists and accolades quickly ensued, with New York Times restaurant critic Pete Wells giving the wildly successful Lincoln Center attraction a three-star review — and No. 1 title of the best restaurant in New York.
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It was during his D.C. hiatus when he also fell in love with the game of golf; ever since his actor friend Adrian Homles — who plays Uncle Phil on Peacock’s modern-day TV series Bel-Air — took him to his first driving range, he was hooked. “It’s so serene — you’re in nature and can’t be on your phone,” he says. In between taking swings and bites of his “fucking good” $5 half-smoke from the course’s on-site cafe Potomac Grille, he adds: “This is the first time I’ve had work-life balance.”
The night before, he previewed Dōgon’s full menu for the first time during a private tasting with Salamander CEO Sheila Johnson. The duo’s fourth annual Family Reunion is this weekend at Salamander Middleburg, where 40 of his chef friends (plus surprise musicians) gather to celebrate diversity in the hospitality industry. He reveals he first met the billionaire businesswoman six years ago “very randomly,” after delivering a speech at a Bahamas wedding convention. “I was very candidly myself and cursing,” he recalls. “She was the only person who got up at the end, saying ‘You’re real. I like you.’”
Maybe it’s his newest outdoor hobby, or simply the culinary confidence that comes with more years in the kitchen, but the 34-year-old chef appears to be fully at ease and in control as he undertakes his next big project. After his first D.C. restaurant Shaw Bijou famously fizzled fast in 2016, the pressure was on to make Kith/Kin deliver at the Wharf (it did, of course, earning him the 2019 James Beard Award for Rising Chef and critical acclaim for his refined approach to jollof rice, oxtails, and curried goat).
“I just feel more mature and not so obsessive over it, unlike the last time when I was in the public eye. I was still a kid growing up,” he says, of opening his first restaurant at age 26. “This one is super special to me.”
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He’s amassed a dream team of talent to debut Dōgon, which includes his former Kith/Kin chef Martel Stone and beverage director Derek Brown, the pioneering D.C. mixologist who founded Columbia Room.
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The vision for Dōgon predates Tatiana, going back four years ago when he was researching how big of an impact Banneker made on the nation’s capital. “I was like, ‘this is incredible.’ This Black man was hired by George-fucking-Washington — how good did he have to be at his job to be hired back then at the beginning of time?”
Banneker, a largely self-educated mathematician, astronomer, and urban planner, turned to the starry night sky as a geographical guide.
“D.C. wouldn’t even have a capital without West African science as we know it today. So why not tell the story? All the dishes are inspired by that,” he says.
As far as what Dōgon’s destination one will be, he always leaves that up to the guests; he didn’t anticipate Tatiana’s greatest hits to be its tender short rib pastrami suya or “bodega special” featuring a Cosmic Brownie. (Turns out, no one ended up ordering his hopeful signature: a hot pocket.)
“Honestly, I’m just trying to cook some good food — that’s always my goal,” he says.
Surrounded by swaying willows, views of DCA planes flying in, and sounds of squawking geese on the 18th hole, his randomly-matched golf partner of the day finally realized he was playing with a famous chef the entire time. “Holy shit, I just Googled you,” he says. “You’re the answer on today’s Washingtonian crossword puzzle.”
To which, Onwuachi quipped back: “I’m just an amateur golfer, man.”
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Washington, D.C
12th Honor Flight Tallahassee returns home from successful trip to Washington D.C.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV) – Seventy-two veterans took a trip Saturday to our nation’s capital to visit memorials honoring their service in the armed forces.
This year marks the 12th trip to Washington, D.C. for Honor Flight Tallahassee.
Early Saturday morning, veterans and their guardians met to take a charter flight up to D.C.
Throughout the day, veterans were taken to the World War II memorial, as well as the Korean and Vietnam War memorials. The veterans also visited Arlington National Cemetery and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
More Tallahassee news:
The day ended with a wonderful welcome home celebration.
Our Jacob Murphey, Julia Miller, Taylor Viles, and Grace Temple accompanied the veterans, capturing moments from throughout the day.
The team will have live coverage from Washington, D.C. on Monday to share more from the day’s events.
We will continue to have coverage throughout the month of May, leading up to our Honor Flight special on Memorial Day.
To keep up with the latest news as it develops, follow WCTV on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Nextdoor and X (Twitter).
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Copyright 2026 WCTV. All rights reserved.
Washington, D.C
Storm Team4 Forecast: A chilly, gusty Sunday before a cool start to the week
4 things to know about the weather:
- Chances of rain in the morning
- Gusty Sunday
- Chilly Monday
- Temps will rise again through the work week
Download the NBC Washington app on iOS and Android to check the weather radar on the go.
After a nice and warm Saturday, changes arrive for part two of the weekend.
The first half of your Sunday will have a chance for showers. Winds will pick up with our next system and are expected to gust to about 20-30 mph. Cooler air will settle in, and lows Sunday night fall into the 40s.
Highs temps Monday will reach only into the mid to upper 50s.
However, temperatures will rise through the week, so you won’t need your jackets every day.
QuickCast
SUNDAY:
Showers, then partly cloudy
Wind: NW 10-15 mph
Gusts @ 30 mph
HIGH: Lower 60s
MONDAY:
Partly cloudy
Wind: NW 10-15 mph
Gusts @ 25 mph
HIGH: Upper 50s
Stay with Storm Team4 for the latest forecast. Download the NBC Washington app on iOS and Android to get severe weather alerts on your phone.
Washington, D.C
‘It’s a twilight zone’: Iran war casts deep shadows over IMF gathering in Washington
The most severe energy shock since the 1970s, the risk of a global recession and households everywhere stomaching a renewed surge in the cost of living – hitting the most vulnerable hardest.
In a sweltering hot Washington DC this week, the message at the International Monetary Fund meetings was chilling: things had been looking up for living standards around the world. But then came the Iran war.
“Some countries are in panic,” said the fund’s managing director, Kristalina Georgieva, addressing the finance ministers and central bank bosses in town for the IMF and World Bank spring meetings. “The sooner it [the Iran war] ends, the better for everybody.”
Such gatherings are not typically used to fight geopolitical battles. “You don’t get people shouting at one another at these things,” one senior figure remarked. But, as a record-breaking April heatwave swept the US capital, no one could ignore the mounting damage from the Iran war.
Those familiar with the mood over breakfast at a meeting of the G20’s representatives on Thursday, which included Donald Trump’s treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, and the outgoing US Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell – said the atmosphere in the room was sombre amid an open exchange of serious views.
“It is such a twilight-zone meeting,” said Mohamed El-Erian, a former IMF deputy managing director who is now chief economic adviser at the Allianz insurance group. “There are several shadows hanging over it: one is the shadow that comes from concern about the global economy as a whole.
“The second is that some countries are going to be particularly hard hit, and it’s mostly countries that very few people are talking about. But the third concern is the adding of insult to injury: the fact that the US, which started a war of choice, is going to be hit, but by a lot less than elsewhere in relative terms.”
Before Thursday’s breakfast, Rachel Reeves had started her day with an early-morning jog. Joined by her counterparts from Spain, Australia and New Zealand for a run down the iconic National Mall, she posted an Instagram selfie with a not-so-subtle dig: “Friends that run together – work together.”
A day earlier, the chancellor had told a CNBC conference that she thought “friends are allowed to disagree on things” as she criticised Trump’s Iran war as a “mistake” and a “folly” that had not made the world safer.
Speaking at a venue just steps away from the White House, before a one-on-one meeting with Bessent, she said this “fair message” was needed because UK families and businesses were feeling the pain from higher energy prices triggered by the conflict.
Those close to Reeves insist her meeting remained cordial. Britain and the US have significant shared interests in AI, financial services and trade. The chancellor also said the UK government had little time for the Iranian regime.
But with the IMF having warned on Tuesday that the Iran war could risk a global recession – in which Britain would be the biggest G7 casualty – it was clear Reeves had travelled to Washington ready to pick a fight.
“I’m struck by how vocal she has been and the words she used,” said one global financier. “We know the disagreement between Bessent and [European Central Bank president] Christine Lagarde earlier in the year. But that was in private.”
At a cocktail party held at the British ambassador’s residence for hundreds of diplomats and financiers – including the Bank of England’s governor, Andrew Bailey, the chief executive of Barclays, CS Venkatakrishnan, and dozens of senior figures – this transatlantic tension, weeks before King Charles’s US state visit, was a major topic of conversation.
The other, in the balmy residence gardens, was one of its former occupants, Peter Mandelson, as revelations about the former ambassador’s appointment threatened to further rock the UK government.
Before the war, the agenda for the IMF had been about global cooperation; the adoption of AI, jobs and work to eradicate poverty. Each of those tasks had now been complicated, but not least the task of countries working together.
For many at the meetings, the focus was on forging closer global cooperation without the world’s pre-eminent superpower.
“Everybody is talking about how you hedge against American decisions,” said David Miliband, the former UK foreign secretary, who now runs the International Rescue Committee. “You can’t do without them, because they’re 25% of the global economy. But, in a lot of fora, they’ve pulled out.
“So everyone has to think, how does one structure international cooperation? The old west is not coming back. And so everyone has to figure out how to position themselves for that world.”
For those gathering in Washington, there was irony in the fact that they were meeting in the halls of institutions founded, under US leadership, to promote global cooperation after the second world war. The whole idea of the Bretton Woods institutions was to avoid the dire economic conditions and warfare of the 1930s and 1940s. Yet this year’s meeting was taking place amid these intertwining problems.
In their conversations about the best economic policy response to the shock of conflict, the economists also knew the real power to make a difference lay two blocks across town from the IMF and the World Bank – behind the security cordons and construction equipment blocking the White House from public view. “It is not clear they can do anything about it,” said El-Erian.
Still, with a booming economy driven by AI – including Anthropic’s powerful Mythos model, the topic of much conversation – most countries cannot afford to completely break off US ties.
“People want to find ways to insulate themselves from the mess. But, on the other hand, they admire the US private sector,” El-Erian said. “The best way I’ve heard it put, is: they want to go long the private sector and short the mess. But it’s almost impossible to do.”
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