food films

‘Rising Star Chef’ Kwame Onwuachi’s Memoir Is Being Adapted Into a Movie

Kwame Onwuachi. Photo: Mark Von Holden/REX/Shutterstock

Kwame Onwuachi is having what you’d call an okay year. He won the James Beard Foundation Award for Rising Star Chef, was also named one of Food & Wine’s Best New Chefs, and made a splash with his memoir Notes from a Young Black Chef. In a recent review, the New York Times called the book, co-written with Joshua David Stein, a “rip-roaring tale of ambition” and a “sobering account of racism.” Onwuachi’s story has resonated in a big way, and now Variety reports that it will be adapted into a feature film starring Lakeith Stanfield and financed by A24.

That company’s involvement bodes well, suggesting the film’s ambitions might be more Big Night than Burnt on the quality spectrum: A24 was behind The Farewell, Midsommar, and The Last Black Man in San Francisco, three of the year’s best films so far. Stanfield’s involvement is also cause for excitement; “the new symbol of Hollywood weird,” per the Times, starred in last year’s surrealist Sorry to Bother You and plays the delightfully bizarre Darius Epps in Atlanta.

Stanfield will be producing along with Stephen “Dr” Love and Colin Stark, and rising screenwriting star Randy McKinnon will adapt the book. (Just a few days ago, it was announced that McKinnon is writing a sports drama for Disney+ about the real-life story of Clemson football player Ray Ray McElrathbey.)

Kwame Onwuachi’s Memoir Is Being Adapted Into a Movie