With the debut of Mina’s Fish House by Michael Mina, the celebrity chef fulfills a 30-year dream of opening a beachfront dedicated seafood restaurant in Hawaii.
The restaurant at the Four Seasons Oahu at Ko Olina marks the fifth partnership between the international hotelier and the Mina Group, each restaurant unique to its environment.
“Our goal is to be part of the landscape of a great food city,” Mina said during a small media gathering Monday.
Mina — who got his feet wet in Hawaii with two International Market Place locations, Stripsteak and The Street: A Michael Mina Social House — said opening a seafood restaurant in Hawaii “was a little intimidating, because this is a great seafood community.”
But he said he believes in collaboration and assembled a knowledgeable local team to help source and prepare local fish.
While still a work in progress, he envisions that come spring, guests will be able to make their selections from a 12-foot market-style display of daily fresh catch, as well as tanks of live lobsters, crab, abalone and shrimp.
For now, guests can make their selections from a menu that starts with seafood platters, including a wood-fired shellfish platter of miso-butter broiled lobster, crab, shrimp and oysters.
Other highlights: catch of the day with Okinawa sweet potato gnocchi; Kona lobster coconut-lime bisque; Singapore street noodles with Kauai shrimp; and coriander-crusted whole fried fish with chickpea flour, recalling Mina’s Egyptian upbringing.
Mina is also working with the Four Seasons to develop programs such as deep sea-fishing trips in which guests go fishing with his chefs, then bring their catch back to the restaurant to be cooked to their specifications.
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Nadine Kam, special to the Star-Advertiser
CANstruction comes through
September’s CANstruction project at Pearlridge Center collected 24,494 pounds of canned food, all of it donated to the Hawaii Foodbank.
CANstruction is an annual competition in which teams build sculptures out of canned goods. The cans they use go to the food bank, as do donations from visitors, who cast votes by leaving cans for their favorite creations.