KCC culinary program ventures into Waikiki

A renovation delay at the Waikiki Parc Hotel provided an opportunity for Kapiolani Community College’s Culinary Institute of the Pacific to run a restaurant in the heart of Oahu’s tourist mecca.

The hotel’s makeover, planned for this year, prompted Nobu Waikiki to move from the Parc to Ward Villages late last year. When the renovation was delayed to 2018, the Halekulani Corp., which owns the Parc, offered the school the chance to take over the former Nobu space during the interim.

The Le‘ahi Concept Kitchen at Waikiki Parc Hotel will open April 9, offering farm-to-table cuisine and pop-up dinners by top chefs from across the globe.

“This gives us a good opportunity to test various concepts to a market outside our regular customers,” KCC Culinary Arts Chairman Ron Takahashi said last week.

“The regular restaurant will use as much locally grown and raised farm products as possible, and 100 percent local seafood, with a goal of showcasing Hawaii’s farmers,” said Takahashi. “Staff will make menus around available products. This is great training, to be responsive to what’s available at the time.”

Chef Eddie Mafnas, a KCC culinary program alumnus, will lead the kitchen. Mafnas is a partner in Aloha Poke Shop and runs Mafnas Catering, which has fed no less than President Barack Obama, Jay Z and Beyonce.

He says the entire restaurant staff has ties to KCC, from fellow alumni to recent graduates and current students.

“We have staff that are young and hungry — and sound — and it’s nice to see that,” he said. “These are the next generation of chefs.”

His staff will work with Niihau lamb, Maui venison, Hawaii Ranchers beef and local fish, octopus, abalone and perhaps even lobster. The restaurant will have a buyer at the fish auction daily and will do business with small fishermen as well. Produce will come from numerous local farms.

The restaurant will also give diners rare access to top cuisine from other parts of the world when visiting chefs come to town quarterly. During those visits the restaurant will be converted to deliver each chef’s menu in a pop-up dinner.

Though Takahashi isn’t yet naming names, he says the chefs will be of a high caliber from renowned restaurants. Most Hawaii diners would be unable to dine in those restaurants even while traveling, because reservations are so hard to come by, he said.

“This would be a way local restaurant customers can experience the food of these chefs.”

The Halekulani is enthusiastic about the partnership, given the reputation of KCC’s culinary program, said Julie Arigo, Parc general manager. “Le‘ahi Concept Kitchen will provide awareness not just to the community, but to visitors as well. It’s a feel-good project, dining for a great cause, as part of KCC’s next chapter with the new Culinary Institute of the Pacific.”

With the opening at the Parc, the culinary center will be operating on three fronts: at the KCC campus, at the Parc and at its new Diamond Head campus, on the grounds of the Army’s former Cannon Club. Phase 1 of the Diamond Head campus has just been completed, and the school moved into classroom facilities last month.

The school’s current Ka ‘Ikena Laua‘e fine-dining restaurant at KCC, staffed by students, caters primarily to local diners. But the second phase of the Diamond Head campus will include a 180-seat fine-dining and banquet facility, which will serve as a 365-day farm-to-table restaurant, said Takahashi. There is no timeline for completion of Phase 2.

The year at the Parc space offers the school a rare opportunity to try out concepts that might work for the Diamond Head restaurant, Takahashi said, allowing the school to test its game plan to operate a seven-days-a-week restaurant and cater to the tourist market.

“The restaurant must be profitable so it can offset the high costs of culinary education,” he said. “We anticipate that 50 percent of our business at the Diamond Head restaurant will be tourists.”

The KCC campus restaurants serve as instructional labs for culinary students, but Le‘ahi Concept Kitchen will have a paid staff of students and others seeking temporary employment and on-the-job education.

In lieu of a set rent, the institute will pay Halekulani Corp. a nominal percentage of net profits, he said.

An endowment to the culinary program will fund the chef visits. In addition to the pop-up dinners, those chefs will be asked to provide workshops for students and industry professionals. Their presence in the kitchen will benefit students and nonstudents alike, Takahashi said.

“This is a great way to build a resume,” he said. “It beefs up a resume to work with the top chefs of the world.”

———

Leahi Concept Kitchen at the Parc, a BYOB restaurant, will open daily starting April 9, with seatings from 5 to 9:30 p.m.