Maroon: First Black Chef-Led Restaurant Debuts on Las Vegas Strip with Afro-Caribbean Flair

James Beard Award-winning chef Kwame Onwuachi is bringing Maroon, an Afro-Caribbean steakhouse, to Sahara Las Vegas, with construction now underway on the Las Vegas Strip. The restaurant is set to open in early 2026 and will mark the first Las Vegas Strip restaurant led by a Black chef.

"It's always been a dream of mine when I started cooking to have a restaurant in Vegas," Onwuachi said.

"I don't like to get lost in the sauce, in that you know. I have a mission to open a restaurant, and history aside, it's like being the first is cool, but I think making sure you're not the last is even better," he said.

The concept draws on four culinary pillars — Jamaican, Trinidadian, Nigerian, and Louisiana Creole — and takes its name from Jamaica's Maroon people, a symbol of freedom and tenacity that Onwuachi said defines the restaurant's identity.

"So Maroon is the Maroon people of Jamaica. They're the ones who escaped slavery from the British, and in their hiding, they found some wild animals, herbs, and chillis, and dug a pit, lit a fire, put it in there, the animal in there, and covered it, and that's how jerk cuisine was born," he said.

Onwuachi began cooking alongside his mother at age 5, launched a catering company at 19, and trained at the Culinary Institute of America before opening multiple restaurants. He rose to national prominence on Season 13 of Top Chef, went on to open five restaurants before turning 30, and earned the James Beard Foundation's Rising Star Chef of the Year award in 2019. His restaurant Tatiana was named among the best in New York by The New York Times, and he appeared on Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People list.

His journey is chronicled in Recipes from a Young Black Chef. Onwuachi said his long connection to Las Vegas, spanning roughly a decade, made Sahara a full-circle moment for this next chapter.