After spending three years on Maui as a corporate chef, Jonathan Mizukami was excited to return to Oahu in the plum position of executive chef at the Kahala Hotel & Resort.He was just about to launch his first grand tasting menu in March when COVID-19 stay-at-home orders came.
“It was disappointing and unexpected, but it is what it is, and it gave me time to reach out to different vendors and the opportunity to get everything in place,” Mizukami said.
On June 5, the Kahala had become the first of Oahu’s major hotels to start reopening its rooms and restaurant dining rooms to a kamaaina audience.
Dining experiences needed to be reimagined, however. The Plumeria Beach House’s popular buffets were replaced by a la carte menus, with the addition of bento-box concepts that offer some of the variety of the buffet line through combinations of seafood, steak and greens and sides.
Hoku’s Sunday brunch buffet was replaced by TeiHoku, featuring dishes from pancakes and bacon, to cold bar items, to steamed king crab and herb-crusted rib roast — delivered in a $67 teishoku-style feast.
It all serves up an aura of normalcy in unprecedented times. But even the Kahala faces the same challenges as every other food purveyor in town.
“Everything is so sporadic,” Mizukami said. “Vendors don’t know what restaurants’ needs are, because we don’t even know what turnout is going to be. Even bananas are hard to source. Vendors don’t want to Mastock them because they don’t want them to go bad on them. Fish is hard to get because fishermen don’t know how much is going to sell.”
Even so, persistence in the hunt means apple bananas now show up in a banana cream pie gateau on a four-course tasting menu at Hoku’s, and fish abounds, although Maui trout had to be replaced by more familiar salmon.
Social distancing hasn’t been as extreme as at other venues — Hoku’s always had the luxury of space. Some tables near windows have been pushed against the walls, with only two chairs where once there were four, lending more intimacy to some arrangements.
MIZUKAMI SAID Hoku’s evening format was evolving toward tasting menus and three are now available. “It would have been a slower process under normal conditions. We took the opportunity of the closure and reopening to launch everything at once.“
Such menus showcase the skills of the chef, Maui born and raised, who spent years honing his craft at such renowned restaurants as Ferran Adria’s El Bulli in Spain, Alinea in Chicago, and Thomas Keller’s Per Se in New York City and French Laundry in Napa Valley, Calif. Originally lured back to Hawaii by Vintage Cave, he also served as chef de cuisine at Chef Mavro.
The dream menu at Hoku’s is the $200, seven-course Grand Tasting Menu ($80 wine pairings available) that starts with Kona abalone, leading up to dishes of herb-roasted American wagyu and “Peas and Carrots,” something of a misnomer for a dish of butter- poached Keahole lobster dressed with English peas and sweet carrot miso. It ends with two desserts — pineapple shaved ice and a Maui Ku‘ia Estate chocolate tart with Hawaiian red salt caramel and haupia sorbet.
VEGETARIANS HAVE much to celebrate with the Tasting of Vegetables menu, also $200, that starts with a play on oysters Rockefeller featuring salsify, a plant also called oyster plant or oyster vegetable. It is smoked, dried and crisped to taste like bacon and served with chayote shoots and bread crumbs in a roasted garlic cream sauce.
Vegetarian menus like this are a true test of a chef’s abilities, because vegetables require more labor than meat to create a luxurious experience.
Elsewhere on the menu, the corned beef in Samoan palusami is replaced by carrots from Oprah’s Farm on Maui (yes, that Oprah), blanketed in steamed luau leaves and coconut emulsion.
Some dishes on the vegetarian menu include eggs and cream, but preparations can be tweaked to suit vegan diets.
The budget-conscious will gravitate toward the four-course tasting menu ($90) a more comfortable place to start. In addition to the lower price point, it offers a handful of options for each course.
When I visited, the meal started with light-as-air buckwheat waffle topped with ikura and an eye-catching mini garden of sliced cucumbers, pea shoots and edible flowers.
This was followed by shared starters of ahi poke carpaccio dotted with creamy avocado puree, and smoked kampachi with grilled hearts of palm, the plate beautifully dressed with Oprah’s Farm radishes and purple turnips cut in the shape of blossoms. Ms. Winfrey’s organic vegetables figure prominently on the menu because Mizukami prizes the intense flavors that come from Kula’s geography and climate, ideal for slow-growth conditions that optimize plant development.
A taste of the American South came in a dish of soft-shell crab served over a fried green tomato with Kahuku corn pudding.
I loved the sweet-savory creaminess of shellfish ravioli with Small Kine Farm crimini mushrooms, preserved lemon and a soy reduction, topped with chayote tendrils.
Next came entree choices of slow-cooked New Zealand salmon, red wine-braised short ribs and J. Ludovico Farm free-range chicken with pumpkin. But I couldn’t resist the grilled Japanese wagyu and Keahole lobster that came with supplemental price tags of $50 and $15, respectively.
The fat from the wagyu cooked up to a beautiful brittle crisp crust, and the lobster, satisfying in itself, is made more so with an accompaniment of bone-marrow shrimp rice.
For dessert, in addition to the banana cream pie gateau with layers of macadamia-nut dacquoise (baked meringue), a warm chocolate coulant was a satisfying warm chocolate vessel filled with banana anglaise, and accompanied by vanilla ice cream and Hawaiian red salt.
I know many are struggling to stay afloat during the pandemic, but birthdays and anniversaries are still being celebrated and, just as it has during more normal times, the Kahala’s gift to diners is brief respite from the outside world.
HOKU’S
Kahala Hotel & Resort
Food: *** 1/2
Service: ****
Ambiance: ****
Value: *** 1/2
>> Call: 739-8760
>> Hours: 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. daily with 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sunday TeiHoku brunch
>> Prices: $90 to $200 per person plus tax, gratuity and optional wine pairings
>> Precautions: Face masks, hand sanitizer at door, temperature check, social distancing, contact information collected on health questionnaire
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.
