Chef Kwame Onwuachi's first West Coast restaurant, Maroon brings his exploration of Caribbean history and Afro-Caribbean cuisine to the Las Vegas Strip through the familiar framework of an American steakhouse. Located inside Sahara Las Vegas, the restaurant builds on themes first explored at Tatiana in New York and Dōgon in Washington, D.C., while establishing a distinct identity rooted in Jamaican cooking, migration, and storytelling.
The restaurant takes its name from the Jamaican Maroons, communities formed by formerly enslaved Africans who escaped British colonial rule and established independent settlements in Jamaica's mountainous interior. Their cooking techniques, particularly jerk, serve as a guiding influence throughout the menu. Rather than treating jerk simply as a seasoning, Maroon explores its historical roots through dishes prepared over live fire and flavored with ingredients such as pimento wood, allspice, and Caribbean herbs.
The menu reinterprets classic steakhouse traditions through an Afro-Caribbean lens. Dishes include toro bujol with bluefin tuna belly and fried saltines, a truffle mac pie inspired by Caribbean macaroni pie, and an oxtail Wellington wrapped in beef patty dough. The restaurant's dry-aged steaks are wrapped in rum-soaked cheesecloth before aging and finished with green seasoning and Creole-spiced butter. A dedicated live-fire jerk pit anchors the kitchen, where jerk chicken undergoes a four-day process of brining, marinating, smoking, drying, and cooking over pimento and guava wood.
Cocktail director Luis "Lu" Lopez oversees a beverage program inspired by Caribbean ingredients, while master sommelier Chris Gaither leads a wine list emphasizing producers of color, women-led wineries, and sustainable viticulture. Together, the programs reinforce Onwuachi's broader vision: a restaurant that honors Caribbean culinary traditions while expanding expectations of what a modern steakhouse can be.
