After a 14-month closure for renovations, the Mauna Lani, part of the Auberge Resorts Collection, reopened on Jan. 15 with a sleek, contemporary design. Gone are the manmade water features in the central atrium, replaced by understated hardwood flooring and artwork by Pow! Wow! artists and living room-style gathering spaces, including a Hale ‘I‘ike, or House of Knowledge that serves as a Hawaiian cultural center led by Danny Akaka, son of Hawaii’s late congressman.
Come spring, Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop shop will open, to be the largest of the actress’s five apparel and lifestyle stores.
The resort’s dining concepts have also changed to accommodate the demands of today’s traveler. The Bay Terrace is gone, replaced by three concepts: The Market, HaLani restaurant and Ha Bar. The CanoeHouse restaurant has been refurbished and the area around it transformed into a more natural, flowing state, so there’s no more crossing bridges and walking in a circle to get to the restaurant’s entrance.
What hasn’t changed is the resort’s commitment to culinary excellence. The property has the distinction of having spawned “Cuisines of the Sun” during chef Alan Wong’s tenure at the CanoeHouse. In the early 1990s, “Cuisines” was the first island food festival to put Hawaii on the international radar as a culinary destination.
Wong went on to co-found the Hawai‘i Food & Wine Festival with Roy Yamaguchi. This fall, “Cuisines” will make its return to the property in collaboration with Hawai‘i Food & Wine.
The property was also the first laboratory for the early sustainable, farm-to-table ambitions of Peter Merriman — who, like Wong and Yamaguchi, was among co-founders of the Hawaii Regional Cuisine movement.
That heritage is intended to continue through Auberge, a company with roots in cuisine. The rapidly growing hospitality company started with a single restaurant, Auberge du Soleil, opened in 1981 to bring a taste of Provence to California wine country. Its owners found that patrons driving to the restaurant from San Francisco sometimes could use a nearby place to stay after a long night of food and drink, so a resort was built to accommodate them. Today, the Auberge portfolio includes 41 restaurants, 15 spas and 19 hotels and resorts, with another eight on the way, and a commitment to learning about the history of each place and its people.
It’s a tall order, and one that will be interesting to follow in coming months.
AT CANOEHOUSE, executive chef Matt Raso is bringing a casual, approachable sensibility to upscale dining. Raso spent 14 years working for chef Nobu Matsuhisa, four of them at Nobu Honolulu, then headed to Nobu Miami, where he spent 10 months before returning to Hawaii.
At the CanoeHouse, he’s been given carte blanche to create the menu he wants and it will be interesting to watch what develops. With Nobu’s style still in his blood, he says he often finds himself thinking in terms of, “What would Nobu like?”
As to what Raso would like, it’s a menu that embraces all the contemporary touch points of sustainability and casual luxury that still manages to be fun, which suits the chef’s playful energy. He’s been known to parade through the restaurant with a platter of sizzling Kauai shrimp ($36) that turns heads as diners catch whiffs of the tantalizing aromas, launching a dozen orders. Instead of staying in the kitchen, he’s often in the dining room dropping off dishes and striking up a rapport with diners to get their feedback.
THE SHRIMP make a good place to start. Like much of Raso’s opening menu, they have Japanese flourishes of yuzu and soy, which add dimension to the garlic butter and make an irresistible combination. It’s great for pairing with shokupan ($12), a loaf of buttered and salted pull-apart bread, to soak up all the extra sauce.
For a cold start, you can build your own chilled seafood platter by choosing from a short roster of selections such as Kona abalone ($18 each), oysters ($5 each), shrimp cocktail ($4 each) or poke ($6 to $8 per portion). Kona kampachi poke ($6) with the simplicity of a citrus-soy sauce, slivered onions and cilantro offers a luxurious change of pace from more typical ahi poke.
Hot snacks range from flame-tossed edamame with sea salt ($6) and grilled shishito peppers ($8) to kushiyaki of chicken, pork or beef sold by the skewer at $7, $9 and $10, respectively. I like the a la carte pricing that allows diners to pick and choose. Sometimes you want just a small sampling, or perhaps someone at the table doesn’t eat meat and you do. This approach takes many dining preferences into account. If you’re short on cash, you can graze on light options. If you’re flush, you can go all out.
Since moving back to the Big Island, Raso said, he’s taken advantage of the weather by doing a lot of grilling at home, and that love for the grill is turning up at CanoeHouse through warayaki-style presentations of tuna ($24), Kona kampachi ($22) and wagyu ($56), hay-smoked and seared at the table. The smoking process helps mask the metallic flavor of iron emanating from the animal proteins.
Those in favor of crispy snacks may want to gravitate toward the crispy squid ($12) with a light sprinkling of curry salt and shichimi, or local corn tempura ($12) with kernels that burst pleasantly with each bite.
On the high end, a whole king crab leg ($58) is not to be missed, layered with a rich black truffle crust and scallions, cut into bite-sized pieces to be easy to lift and share. The opposite of this luxe dish may be the smoked pork jowl ($38), with the simplicity of smoked pork, roasted fingerling potatoes, cabbage and a 62-degree egg stirred together at the table in a miso-mustard sauce. The dish is an ode to Raso’s first stay years ago on the Big Island.
RAZO’S ZERO-WASTE philosophy shows up in a 36-ounce tomahawk ribeye ($175) prepared yasaizuke (vegetable-cured) style, using vegetable trimmings from the kitchen and a 10 percent blend of salt and miso to marinate and add extra umami to the meat.
Desserts range from a light Japanese-style cheesecake ($14) served with coconut cream and fruits, to a bitter chocolate combination ($12) of chocolate cremeux, hazelnut crumble, cocoa tuille and passionfruit-banana sauce.
More is in development, including a sushi chef to offer selections in the lounge, at the bar and, eventually, tableside, with cart delivery. Raso may also be adding Latin flavors from his tenure in Miami and childhood in Texas, and as he learns more about his new home, will add more local purveyors. His list of sources already includes Kekela Farms, Io Farms HL Farms, Mother Nature’s Miracle and Kipuupuu Farms.
I’m looking forward to seeing how this all comes together by the time “Cuisines of the Sun” rolls around.
CANOEHOUSE
Mauna Lani, Auberge Resorts Collection, 68-1400 Mauna Lani Drive, Hawaii island
Food: ****
Service: ****
Ambiance: ****
Value: ****
>> Call: (808) 657-3293
>> Hours: 5:30 to 9:30 p.m.
>> Price: $90 to $125 for two without alcohol
Ratings compare similar restaurants:
**** – excellent
*** – very good
** – average
* – below average
Nadine Kam’s restaurant reviews are conducted anonymously and paid for by the Star-Advertiser. Reach her at nkam@staradvertiser.com.
