Mina’s Fish House brings happy hour into the sunshine

Mina’s Fish House at the Four Season’s Resort at Ko Olina has two major selling points: The beach and chef Michael Mina.

The restaurant practically sits on the sand of Ko Olina’s first lagoon, with a sweeping, sunshiny view. Pull up a chair, leave on the shades and soak in the resort-happy glow.

The menu is set by Mina, one of the original seafood-centric celebrity chefs (never mind that his Waikiki restaurant is a steakhouse; a man’s gotta stretch). He won a James Beard Foundation Award for best California chef in 2002 while at the helm of his first restaurant, Aqua in San Francisco.

Now heading Mina Group, the chef runs more than 30 restaurants, from a tavern in Baltimore to a brasserie in Dubai. At Fish House, Mina returns to his line-to-table roots.

The experience

You’d have to be extremely tightly wound not to be able to relax in this setting. Take a table on the large terrace, or if it’s just too hot, retreat to the shady interior, which is still open to the outdoors but arranged to create the feel of several comfy sitting rooms.

It’s easy to imagine yourself a tourist with no schedule to keep outside of the next application of sunscreen. Between the sea air and the cheerful service, aren’t you lucky you live Hawaii?

The food

Concentrate your calories on the lafas — Middle Eastern-style flatbreads that are a Mina specialty. At $11 they come topped with ahi carpaccio, coriander-crusted fish or fried chicken strips.

Lafas are an ideal happy-hour food, providing substance without heaviness and a nice mix of crunch and chew.

The carpaccio is an elegant alternative to poke, spiked with fried bits of garlic and shallot, but not so much that you lose the fish. It comes topped with thin slices of radish and microgreens, with a squeeze of garlic aioli.

The coriander fish is better thought of as a salad with a single strip of fried fish to the side, well dusted in cracked coriander seeds that provide a satisfying herbal essence. The salad is key here, a spring mix tossed with cucumber, pickled onions, watermelon radish and shaved hearts of palm.

For a higher protein ratio, go with the crispy chicken lafa with its sweet-spicy barbecue sauce. In lieu of salad you get a light pile of cilantro leaves with a sprinkling of thinly sliced veggies.

The other menu items I’d consider higher-end bar food — smoked marlin dip with taro chips, crispy cauliflower, or a bowl of fried squid, shrimp and shishito peppers. French fries come fried in duck fat or dusted with the Middle Eastern spice zaatar.

These “Shareable Snacks” are $9 each or three for $24. I’m a sucker for smoked fish, so my favorite here was the chip-and-dip. These dips can retreat into the ultra-creamy, but this one is studded with marlin bits and sprinkled with furikake, a combo that made it a cut above.

The drink

Specialty cocktails, $9, are serious drinks. We tried the Zona Rosa (tequila, lilikoi, vanilla, prosecco) and the Lexington (rye, peach liqueur, bitters), both were satisfyingly spirited, somewhat fruity but not too sweet, and icy enough for a warm day.

Another option is Lost at Sea, a rum punch with tea, mango and cinnamon, meant to be shared ($18 to serve two; $36 for four). Draft beers are $5. Wine and sangria are $6 a glass or $30 a bottle.

The verdict

Fun, sun, sand between your toes. Icy drinks and crunchy pupu. It all spells “paradise.” What more do you need?