Hawai‘i Food & Wine Festival highlights

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ERIKA ENGLE / EENGLE@STARADVERTISER.COM

Battle of the Brunch and Bass: The winning dishes Sunday from Lee Anne Wong and Sven Ullrich: Ullrich’s savory crepe, left, of kalo andchicken, with a kalo-coconut compote, onion rings and pitaya salsa; with Wong’s rum-honey kalo cake and coconut creme.

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NADINE KAM / NKAM@STARADVERTISER.COM

A Culinary Flight: Some of those who stayed until the end of Friday’s event at the Hawai’i Convention Center — like Lee-Ann Kong, left, and Brittany Dupee — were lucky enough to collect unfinished bottles. These were from Chapter 24 Vineyards.

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JOLEEN OSHIRO / JOSHIRO@STARADVERTISER.COM

Keiki in the Kitchen: Lilja Kikuhara-Talvala, 5, of Kaneohe, wielding a mean butter knife, got some moral support from none other than chef Roy Yamaguchi while learning to make a Witches Brew Parfait at a cooking class Saturday at Ko Olina. The free family event boasted food trucks, a miniature farmersmarket, kids’ cooking competitions, kalo pounding and lots more.

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NADINE KAM / NKAM@STARADVERTISER.COM

A Culinary Flight: Stuart Brioza and Nicole Krasinski, with their team from California State Bird Provisions.

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BETTY SHIMABUKURO / BSHIMABUKURO@STARADVERTISER.COM

Urban Luau: “Now I know what it’s like to kiss a fuzzy guy,” Hawaii chef Mark Noguchi said after planting one on Ravi Kapur of San Francisco’s Liholiho Yacht Club. It was a moment of pre-event bonding Wednesday for the chefs at Salt@Our Kakaako, with Chung Chow of New York’s Noreetuh, left, and Troy Teroratua of REAL a Gastropub.

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It was five full days of high-end eating and drinking at the Hawai‘i Food & Wine Festival, which wrapped up Sunday. In words and pictures, here are highlights from some of the key events.

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True rarities

The kindness of strangers led to an exceptional wine tasting, “Rarities,” on Saturday morning.

The French wines were collected in the 1980s by a local family and donated anonymously to the festival.

It was enough for 50 guests to taste 12 wines mostly from Bordeaux, with two from the Rhone region. Price of a seat: $295.

How special were these 26- to 34-year-old wines? “For most of us this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” master sommelier and host Roberto Viernes said. He estimated the value of the wines as up to $1,100 per bottle.

They represent a classic time in Bordeaux, Viernes said, before wines of the region turned more ripe and oaky, when they were more elegant and pure.

The panel of four master sommeliers named two favorites: the 1989 Chateau La Mission Haut-Brion Cru Classe and the 1989 Jean-Louis Chave Heritage.

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Betty Shimabukuro, Star-Advertiser

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Award-winning chefs trust local suppliers

How do chefs far and wide get ready to cook at the Hawai‘i Food & Wine Festival? Most order the local products they need, pack up the rest and hop on a plane.

Here’s how James Beard Award winners Nicole Krasinski and Stuart Brioza, chef/owners of the Michelin-starred State Bird Provisions, do it: First, they call their good friends at Wailea Agricultural Group and place a big order for ulu (breadfruit) and a bunch of other local goodies. Next, they pack real light and head out the door.

As in, “We came with nothing,” said Brioza. “That’s the way all of us should be doing it.”

What they gained in going hyperlocal — something they’re famous for in San Francisco — they paid for in the stress of not knowing whether there’d be 100 pounds of ulu available at the time of the festival. “I made a lot of calls to Lesley (Hill, at the Wailea farm),” Brioza admitted.

In the end it all worked out according to plan. For Friday evening’s “A Culinary Flight” event at the Hawai‘i Convention Center, the couple delivered an ulu and goat cheese fried cake served with finger lime and a sauce of Maui onion agedashi and fresh Hawaiian nutmeg.

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Joleen Oshiro, Star-Advertiser