In the March 2021 issue of Honolulu Magazine, I wrote about what is happening at restaurants as we ease out of a pandemic-ruled world. Chefs and restaurateurs such as Ed Kenney, Robynne Mai‘i and D.K. Kodama shared stories of survival and how the experience is reshaping their businesses as they move forward. Due to space restrictions, not everyone I interviewed made it into the story. So I’m publishing outtakes and start with Christopher Sy, owner-baker-chef of Breadshop, that boutique of impeccable crusty loaves, buttery brioche and pretty pastries in Ka‘imuki. A friend who was a keto acolyt ..read more

Cooking the fifth-anniversary porchetta in 2010. The mid-2000s were a milestone time in Honolulu’s restaurant history. In June 2004, Kevin Hanney opened 12th Ave Grill in Kaimuki. The banquettes upholstered in black-and-gold bamboo fabric, kim chee-marinated steak and addictive smoked ahi spread, and long oak bar with a classic cake stand on one end were like nothing the city had seen before. I had moved back to Honolulu from Manhattan a year earlier and the new American bistro was the closest thing to the joints I was eating at and writing about in New York City. It was an instant hit. Then a ..read more

UHMC Culinary Arts student Sage Gomes with her Raspberry White Chocolate Mousse Cakes. Looks like she’s ready to face Paul Hollywood! As Hawai‘i reopens to Life 2.0, we hear how the restaurant industry is one of the hardest hit, from Maui to Manhattan. But restaurateurs and chefs are doing everything they can to keep their dining rooms going. Locally the State’s $500 restaurant card—funded with $75 million from CARES Act money—is arriving in mailboxes of people who are receiving unemployment benefits. The goal is to feed people while injecting some cash into struggling restaurants. The culinar ..read more

12th Ave. Grill’s Kevin Hanney proposes turning a lane of 12th Ave. into a Kaimuki Cafe & Promenade Restaurants in Hawai‘i were permitted to reopen for dine-in service, following best social-distancing practices, on June 5. I went out to eat (at a restaurant that has outdoor tables) for the first time in three months a week later. Since then, I have been invited to eat out and distance-shamed for going. It is a confusing time. I pine to be a regular at Miro Kaimuki’s counter while trying to lead a zero-risk life (my mother has underlying conditions and we live together). It’s hard scrollin ..read more

On April 20, actor Stanley Tucci posted on Instagram a video of him mixing that classic aperitif cocktail the Negroni. It went viral, with comments pouring in (people are especially fervent about shaking vs. stirring!) and publications from Hollywood Reporter to the UK’s The Guardian covered it. Cited for being soothing in the midst of a global pandemic, the video, shot by Tucci’s wife (Emily Blunt’s sister Felicity), shows the soigné actor walking us through the making of a Negroni up. We asked three of Honolulu’s best bartenders to chime in on his performance. There’s one thing they all agre ..read more

                                                                                                                                               Andrew Harnik/AP Hallelujah for Oregon Rep. Earl Blumenauer. Today he unveiled a plan to establis ..read more

Chris Kajioka and Anthony Rush at Senia’s chef’s counter in 2017, two months after the restaurant’s long-awaited opening. Every year a healthy handful of Hawai‘i chefs, restaurateurs and wine professionals make it as James Beard Award semifinalists. And every year the final ballot is announced, and we (or those who follow this kind of thing anyway) let out a collective sigh when we see none of our hometown heroes have made it. Not this year—the James Beard Foundation announced the 2020 nominees yesterday to reveal Chris Kajioka and Anthony Rush of Senia are Hawai‘i’s last chefs standing, as jo ..read more

This morning, the Independent Restaurant Coalition sent a letter to Congress urging it to create a $120 billion restaurant stabilization fund, to save our struggling indie restaurant industry. Then at 11am (5am Hawai‘i time!) IRC leaders Naomi Pomeroy (Beast, Portland, pictured above), José Andrés (World Central Kitchen, Washington, DC), Andrew Zimmern (What’s Eating America) and Sam Kass (political advisor and former White House chef), along with struggling chef Nina Compton (Compère Lapin, New Orleans) and Rosa Garcia (Mott Haven Bar & Grill, the Bronx), held a Zoom Town Hall to ta ..read more

Clockwise from top left: smoked beef belly with crab fat finadene dinache, Kauai shrimp Kelaguen, tuba cocktail, red rice. Lots of people on O‘ahu get cravings for the Chamorro dish kelaguen, the Mariana Islands’ equivalent of ceviche, but there aren’t many places to sate them. The Firehouse Food Truck closed, leaving the Chamorro Grindz Food Truck at the Waikele Outlet. The Prince Waikiki’s 100 Sails Restaurant & Bar steps into the breach for one night with Pacific Fiesta: Celebrating Chamorro Cuisine, part of its quarterly Off the Eaten Path chef’s table series, on Thursday, Nov. 14, 6-9 ..read more

Chris Kajioka, Shigeru Kobayashi and Mourad Lahlou at Café Miro. Kobayashi will continue to cook until the end of September, and the restaurant will reopen under its new owners in February. While interviewing Senia co-chef Chris Kajioka about his new project Bar Māze last month, I learned even bigger news: “I’m opening a French bistro with Mourad in the Café Miró space.” Mourad is Mourad Lahlou, chef-owner of his eponymous restaurant in San Francisco, and half of the city’s It Couple, with San Francisco Ballet principal dancer Mathilde Froustey. I think I just looked at Kajioka, dumfounded. Be ..read more