TOP OF THE LINE

Kwame Onwuachi and the rise of autobiographical cuisine.

- HANNAH GOLDFIELD

It was only A.M. on a Tuesday I in July, but the staff at Tatiana, the restaurant in Lincoln Center's David Geffen Hall, seemed exhausted. "Kerry Washington was in last night," a publicist told me. Someone else mentioned that there had been a private event on Sunday-the one day of the week when the restaurant is usually closed. The last guests had trickled out at 4 A.M. on Monday, and the managers hadn't left until six. The party was for Beyoncé, who had just played a sold-out show at MetLife Stadium, and Jay-Z. ("I buried the lede," the publicist said.)

Kwame Onwuachi, Tatiana's chef and proprietor, wouldn't normally be at the restaurant so early, but he was there to record a television segment for WNBC his second of the day, after the "Today" show, at half past eight. "You've had a busy morning!" the camera operator said. "It's not really morning if you don't sleep," Onwuachi replied.

For the segment, Onwuachi and a reporter named Lauren Scala were going to sample dishes that he'd be cooking for an event at the U.S. Open: pepper steak, hamachi escovitch, black-bean hummus topped with berbere lamb. A bottle of spring water was produced. Someone asked if there shouldn't be wine, too. "Are you gonna turn this water into wine?" Scala quipped. Onwuachi laughed and said, "It is my Jesus year, though! Thirty-three."

"Do I remember when I was thirty-three?" Scala wondered aloud.

"It must have been a good year if you don't remember it,"Onwuachi said.