A Chef Inspired by Nando's and Her Nan

India Doris is making her name with peri peri chicken and a team of loyal cooks.

- TAMMIE TECLEMARIAM

India Doris, center, with her staff at Haymarket.

CHEF KWAME ONWUACHI remembers tough conversations he had with investors while trying to open a restaurant in Washington, D.C. It would be located on a redeveloped wharf, and his board suggested a menu of meze platters and lightly cooked seafood. "I was like, 'My name is Kwame Onwuachi, and I am not cooking Mediterranean cuisine," he says. "I am cooking African and Caribbean cuisine and highlighting that." That restaurant's success brought him in 2022 to Tatiana at Lincoln Center, which quickly gained a reputation as one of the most innovative restaurants in the city. "Being in these spaces doing this type of cuisine is going to let other people be able to do this," Onwuachi says, "because they'll be able to point to something and say, 'This has worked in this space."