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It’s not often that you can tell your friends to meet you at a car dealership for drinks. Now that Le Radici is open on the second floor of Velocity Honolulu, you can check out that new Bentley, Ferrari, Maserati or Lotus you’ve had your eye on before sauntering upstairs for a cocktail or glass of wine.
Le Radici — which translates as “The Roots” in Italian — opened May 19 after a few weeks of private tastings and media previews. Foodies will want to stop in and see what a menu designed by a Michelin-starred chef looks like. Chef Gianpaolo Raschi of Ristorante Guido in Rimini, Italy, helped open the restaurant with resident executive chef Maurizio Roberti.
Along with regional Italian cuisine that might be unfamiliar to some local residents, Roberti said he’s also excited to share wines that might not have been served in Hawaii before. While the primary focus obviously will be on the food, Roberti said the drinks will also be important to Le Radici’s success.
“We’ll have certain types of grape varietals from over 20 regions of Italy that people don’t even know about,” said Roberti. “At the end of the day, though, it’s about how your palate will correspond with the food. I need to have an understanding of what I have on the plate and how it complements certain things that come out of the wine so anyone can find them. I don’t want to have to tell you. I want you to discover it.”
Not in the mood for a multicourse degustational journey? Settle into one of about six seats at the bar near the main entrance and Le Radici bar manager Joseph Arakawa will help you drink your dinner instead, with nine craft cocktails that share the restaurant’s “roots” theme.
“Everything here is meant to reflect the Italian ingredients, those Italian roots,” Arakawa explained. “But our roots aren’t just Italian, it’s about the roots of everyone here as an individual. So that’s why I drew upon my Korean background. We offer cocktails made with each base spirit — vodka, gin, rum, tequila — and then infuse them with hibiscus to reflect our Hawaiian roots, for example. We use kim chee to reflect my Korean roots.
“Obviously, many of the drinks have to take a back seat to the food, but my job is to give the guest something delicious to try and then transition them into the fantastic wines we have.”
One cocktail that definitely doesn’t take a back seat is the Le Radichee, which combines the Italian bitter liqueur Cynar and Italian- made Malfy gin. Arakawa makes a batch of white kim chee using his mother’s recipe, then adds a bit of just the juice to the drink. The flavor, combined with the savory artichoke taste of the high-proof Cynar (70 percent alcohol by volume) and the lemon-forward profile of the gin, creates a drink unlike anything I’ve tasted in recent memory.
A wedge of daikon kim chee as a garnish provides an additional sensory wrinkle — it’s a little sweet, a little sour and very savory, yet the scent of the daikon helps tie everything together.
Another cocktail worth seeking out is Arakawa’s Soul Resonance, made with rye whiskey, mezcal, gin, sweet vermouth and tawny port. It’s another one that might prompt skepticism when you look at the ingredient list, but take a risk and give it a try, if for no other reason than to shoot some Instagram video and post it online to impress your friends.
Le Radici is at 888 Kapiolani Blvd. and opens at 5:30 p.m. daily except Sundays. Call 592-8881 or follow @leradicihi on Instagram.
LOOKING FOR your next favorite spirit? It may very well be Koloa Rum’s new 12 Barrel Select Aged Rum.
Koloa has been steadily pumping out six types of sugar cane- based distillate, using a 1,210-gallon, steam-powered copper-pot still and water sourced from Kauai’s Mount Waialeale.
The Kalaheo distillery and bottling facility opened in 2009. In January came the release of Koloa’s first aged spirit, which rests for a minimum of three years in charred American white-oak barrels from Heaven Hill Distillery, yielding approximately 3,500 92-proof bottles per 12-barrel batch. It retails for about $50 at all major stores on Oahu.
I’ll be the first to admit that I enjoy Koloa’s products in a mixed drink, but will quickly reach for a bottle of rum made in Jamaica, Barbados or Martinique when it comes to a sipper. That may change now that I’ve had a taste of Koloa’s Barrel Select; the aging process has paid off here, adding depth to the vanilla notes of the rum while still showcasing the sweetness of the Hawaii-grown cane sugar.
While I think this stuff will only benefit from spending even more time in a barrel, I’m impressed by Koloa’s willingness to dedicate the resources to this new product and be transparent about what they’re doing through the entire process.
Find out more about Koloa 12 Barrel Select at koloarum.com.
IT’S ALMOST time for another one of the Prince Waikiki’s famous sake tastings, held in partnership with Fujioka’s Wine Times.
From 6 to 9 p.m. June 12, the Prince will welcome a number of producers from Japan as they serve tastes of more than 70 types of sake and shochu. Among brands represented will be Dassai, Hakkaisan, Kirin, Iichiko, Kubota and Yamato.
Since you shouldn’t drink on an empty stomach, the hotel’s culinary crew will offer a full menu of Japanese-style street food; everyone who attends will also receive a complimentary Spiegelau wine glass to take home.
Tickets for the Hawaii Prince Sake Tour are $75; call 739-9463 by June 8 or email JasonF@times-supermarket.com.
Jason Genegabus has written about the local bar and drink scenes since 2001. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram or email jason@staradvertiser.com.
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