New Kids in the Kitchen
Twenty years after Hawaii Regional Cuisine, a new generation of young chefs are making their own marks, and their own changes, with even greater emphasis on local goods. (front, left to right) Mark Noguchi, Lindsay Ozawa, Andrew Le, Hoku Kupihea. (second row) James Donohue, Lee Takara.(back) Jason Perry, Ed Kenney, Dave Caldiero
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aware of the need to buy local, at least most of the time.
“Anytime I can, I will,” he says, “but I don’t want local Parmesan cheese in my restaurant.”
The Keeper of The Pier.
If Ozawa represented the rebellious youth, Mark Noguchi brings an effortless and endearing warmth, humor and balance to the group. Known as Gooch, he’s the chef/partner at He’eia Pier, which has quickly become a gathering place. His commitment to sustainability is a daily practice.
“People are starting to understand what we’re about,” he says. “When we don’t have fish they’re disappointed, but instead of complaining they point us in the direction of their grandsons or their cousins who are fishermen.”
And despite the struggles to start up restaurants, Gooch feels he and his band of brothers are in a positive place.
“I think we’re really, really tight, and the thread that binds us is a common goal to produce really good food,” he says. “Twenty years ago the HRC chefs did all the hard work for us to get here, and I know I’m grateful. It’s our kuleana not to ruin the path that they made but to continue it.”
The Pop Up.
At the Pig and The Lady, Andrew Le and Martha Cheng’s pop up restaurant that appears four nights a weeks at Hank’s Haute Dogs on Cooke Street, the 24 seats are booked up almost a month in advance. The two are filling a void in the market that Andrew identified when honing his fine dining skills.
“We want to make cheap, delicious local food,” says Le, who uses French techniques he was most recently sous chef at Chef Mavro to dishes influenced by his Vietnamese heritage.
“There is a lot more to Vietnamese food than pho and spring rolls,” says Le. “In Hawaii people like what’s familiar, but if they know your background and you have some level of trust then customers will try different dishes and hopefully try something other than pho or spring rolls.”
Carrying on.
And while food trucks and pop up restaurants provide part of the picture of the changing dining scene, some of the most notable changes have come with a shift in buying power. Zippy’s, (introduced to Kuahiwe rancher Michelle Galimba by Alan Wong) now uses locally farmed beef on its menu, and consequently is single-handedly responsible for continuing ranching on the Big Island. Farmers go to restaurants to ask what they need, fueled by partnerships started by chefs such as Roy Yamaguchi.
Today at Roy’s-Waikiki, Jason Peel faces different challenges than the ones that faced his boss in 1991. A graduate of KCC who worked his way up from dishwasher to executive chef, Jason has seen the effect of HRC from the inside.
“Getting to work with Roy, you see how it’s always about supporting the community,” he says.
“And sometimes that means you’re pulling your hair out because even with a really high nightly volume, we are committed to an entire community of farmers. Whatever’s fresh and whatever is available is what’s on the menu.”
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It’s not unusual, he says, for a local farmer to be out in his fields at 7 a.m. deciding what’s ready to be picked, while a chef is trying to plan the evening’s menu. It’s a pressure he’s happy to live with, and a burden he’s privileged to carry.
“This wouldn’t be happening if the HRC chefs hadn’t started it all,” he says. “Now we have farmers going to restaurants and asking them what they want. That’s a complete turnaround from 20 years ago.”
And this new generation of chefs are evident everywhere. At Wolfgang’s Steak House in Waikiki, Kaneoheborn James Donohue is just 21. He trained under Emeril Lagasse’s corporate chefs and brings a rare, quiet confidence to a restaurant that regularly seats 400 customers a night.
“Our generation is more confident because we’ve grown up around food,” he says. “In the kitchen, it’s my zone. I’m really sure about it. My age doesn’t have anything to do with it.”
Second Generation.
But while the HRC movement began partnerships with farmers and saw the birth of regional cuisine, one area has struggled to survive. While deconstructed plate lunches and varieties of musubi are served at finer dining spots, mom and pop restaurants have been closing their doors, unable to compete with rising costs, and with sons and daughters unwilling to take on the financial responsibility of restaurant renovations and reinvention.
Hope reigns, though, in a second generation committed to carry on what they see as the legacy of Hawaii’s original mixed plates. At Gulick Deli, brothers Lee Takara and Cory Makishi, along with Lee’s wife Denise, are on a mission to keep local food alive. Quiet and unassuming, they don’t have the media attention that surrounds some of their peers, but they do have a clear, concentrated vision.
In keeping family recipes secret and making sauces and marinades by hand, the trio are ensuring a sense of taste that’s as important as Gooch’s sense of place at the Pier or Kenney’s sense of responsibility to farmers.
All are required for the future of Hawaii’s food.
“What we do,” says Lee, modestly “is comfort food. But it’s comfort food from Hawaii. As we evolve and head into the future, we hope to grow into a restaurant where people can experience the taste of tempura and noodles and local style favorites, and they can get a taste of Hawaii that, though it may be gone, it’s still here.”
With sister restaurant Kochi, this second generation of chefs are also able to fuel their need for cutting edge contemporary dishes.
“Our vision is that people can taste the old style foods at Gulick,” says Lee, “and that they also see we can do world-class sushi as well.”
And maybe that’s what these young chefs bring so ably to the table. They understand who they are. They are diverse in style and technique, yet they all walk the same path as when 12 chefs decided to reclaim the food of the islands.
So while it might not seem that Gulick Deli or town have much in common, the truth is that they do. And whether its pizza created in a brand new oven imported from Italy, salumi made from local pigs or an okazuya style deli, what matters, a generation later, is that the food movement is in extremely good hands.
“We want people to know that there’s attention to detail with every single piece of food we put on a plate,” says Lee Takara.
“And we want people to know that while its important to change,” says Gooch, “it’s also important to look back and learn.”
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