With Stripsteak Waikiki, chef Michael Mina will finally have his restaurant in Hawaii

Four times chef Michael Mina came close to opening a restaurant in Hawaii.

Four times his plans fell through.

But the fifth time looks like the charm for the famed chef who already operates 27 restaurants across the country.

Mina’s Stripsteak, an 8,600-square-foot modern steakhouse in the heart of Waikiki, opens on the Grand Lanai of the International Market Place on Aug. 25. The chef was in town last week, introducing his food through free samples handed out during a Honolulu food-truck tour.

Stripsteak is one of 10 restaurants coming to the marketplace, which is being upscaled and redeveloped by Michigan-based Taubman Group with the Queen Emma Land Co. It will be the third Stripsteak location, after Las Vegas and Miami.

Mina had four previous deals with different hotel and resort companies that had advanced even beyond architectural drawings. But ownership changes and then the economic downturn halted them all, he said.

“When this opportunity came up, I never would have dreamed of having a restaurant in that location,” Mina said. He understands the venue’s place in the cultural history of Waikiki and said he appreciates the need for sensitivity toward the many mom-and-pop businesses that operated there for so many years.

Changes at the center aren’t about rewriting history, he said, but rather “layering on to the history of the location … paying tribute to what’s there.”

Mina has loved Hawaii for decades.

“I honeymooned with my wife here. We come here at least twice a year. I’ve done hundreds of events here over time,” he said. “We tried once to take a vacation somewhere else. We don’t try anymore.”

One of those events was a guest-artist affair at the Manele Bay Resort on Lanai in 2000. At the time, he was the 32-year-old chef at Aqua, an acclaimed seafood restaurant in San Francisco.

Guests in the audience wanted to know whether he would open a restaurant in Hawaii, and he said he would be interested in a collaboration with a resort in Wailea, Maui, or perhaps the Kona-Kohala region of Hawaii island. At the time he envisioned splitting his time between California and Hawaii during his semi-retirement years.

Now 46, the Egyptian-born restaurant magnate is nowhere close to retirement. He has developed 17 restaurant concepts in the U.S., including eponymous restaurants in San Francisco and Las Vegas, each of which bears a coveted Michelin star. Two more concepts are under development.

“Stripsteak is a dynamic restaurant” meant to challenge common perceptions of steakhouses, Mina said.

His steaks are prepared sous vide, slow-cooked at low heat to just below rare, then finished at high heat in butter. “I was the first to sous-vide steaks,” Mina said.

While diners can absolutely get a traditional steak and baked potato — “and that potato is baked in a salt crust” — each location’s menu reflects its market. If a restaurant chain is serving identical dishes across the country, “you’re not doing seasonal, you’re not doing local,” he said.

Stripsteak will feature Angus beef, American Wagyu and Japanese A5 Wagyu, poultry and a range of seafood options, including locally caught fish prepared as sashimi, poke or entrees, as well as Hawaii produce.

Mina’s team will blend Stripsteak standards with Hawaii’s diverse culinary influences, Mina said. Many dishes will be shareable, and a section of the menu will be devoted to special dietary considerations, such as diners needing to limit carbohydrates.

Stripsteak will no doubt receive tons of visitor traffic, but Mina greatly desires a local, repeat-customer audience, and said it will take more than a marquee name to gain favor. “I would never rest on that.”

Mina counts local chefs and restaurateurs Roy Yamaguchi and Alan Wong among his friends. Mina and Yamaguchi are on the board of directors of the Culinary Institute of America, he said.

Their success demonstrates how standing the test of time requires evolution, “not 20 or 30 years of just doing the same thing,” Mina said. “Their cuisine continues to grow.”

Such evolution is among Mina’s guiding principles as well, but so are Japanese culinary sensibilities, “the obsession with product, technique and repetition, continuously, to make what I call ‘simple complexity,’” Mina said.

When word spread through Mina group that a sister-restaurant was being built in Hawaii, many hands went up among employees who wanted to make the move.

Mina chose 18-year veteran Ben Jenkins as Stripsteak Waikiki executive chef and, for the general manager position, Ron Bonifacio, who has overseen the opening of more than 10 Mina Group restaurants. Other seasoned employees also are part of the opening crew in Hawaii.

In addition to Stripsteak, Mina and his team also are selecting 12 to 18 restaurants that will populate The Street, a casual food hall at the International Market Place which will offer affordable, quick dining options.