Chef Kwame Onwuachi to open spot in new Salamander hotel by The Wharf

Catch up quick: Onwuachi opened his first-ever restaurant in D.C, the luxe Shaw Bijou, eight years ago (ambitious, short-lived, somewhat controversial).

• Since then he's penned two books including his hit memoir, "Notes from a Young Black Chef," launched a nail polish line, opened an award-magnet Manhattan restaurant, and pioneered an annual food festival for chefs of color at the Salamander in Middleburg with the hotel group's founder Sheila Johnson, with whom he's teaming up with for the D.C. restaurant.

Details: Dōgon (pronounced Doh-gon) is named for the West African tribe from which D.C. surveyor Benjamin Banneker reportedly descended.

• True to Onwuachi's storytelling style of restaurant, the cuisine will draw from the African diaspora, "celebrate all cultures within D.C.'s four quadrants," and nod to the chef's background in Nigerian, Jamaican, Trinidadian, and Creole cooking.

Zoom in: The team tapped high-brow design firm Modellus Novus — behind Onwauchi's Tatiana and other lil' projects like the Whitney Museum — for the look of the dining room, bar, and patio.

• Expect astral themes and chain curtains that nod to Banneker's "gunter's chains" that he used to measure distances (also: an excellent name for a metal band).

Zoom out: The new restaurant is part of a larger design overhaul of the Salamander property — formerly a Mandarin Oriental — that will include an expanded two-story spa.