Hawaii: a food and wine destination?

Wines & Vines, March, 1999 by Ann Walker

What if I came in and ordered a dish and didn't want that wine?

"Well," he grinned, "There will be a secondary wine list," he said. "But maybe if you order from that list I will cook you a special meal for that bottle of wine."

It isn't only Frenchmen who are putting together the new Hawaiian cuisine. The natives are getting in on it, too.

Tom Wong is the executive chef of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel on Waikiki Beach in Honolulu, known around the world as the Pink Palace. It was one of original Waikiki resorts back in Pan Am days. Wong grew up in a close-knit Asian family in Honolulu and, as he puts it, "from small kid time I loved to eat. I loved family gatherings and the center of everything was the kitchen." Wong remembers going with his grandmother to Honolulu's downtown open market where he learned first hand about the flavors of fresh Hawaiian produce, fish, herbs and meat.

"It's amazing when you think about it that it took so long for chefs to begin to appreciate the local ingredients. They've been here all along."

Wong's theme at the Royal Hawaiian is The Flavor of Hawaii. He takes it seriously, working with small farmers to get the best ingredients on the table. His concern extends to wine, although he admits he isn't an authority in that area.

"I work with the food and beverage director. We taste the food and wine together. Sometimes I'll go back and adjust a recipe after trying it with wine," he said.

Beverly Gannon was one of the original chefs who got together in 1992 to help set the course of the new Hawaiian cuisine. She is the chef/co-owner of Hali'lmaile General Store and Joe's Bar & Grill restaurants on Maui.

"The biggest influence is Asian, but the key thing is the wonderful local ingredients. You don't have to do a lot to make something taste good," she said.

Gannon said her approach to matching food and wine would ordinarily be to work from the food to the wine, but in some cases she might build the food around a wine.

"Winemaker dinners are very popular on Maui but I'm real picky about the dinners I do. It has to be someone I like. When that happens, I will create food to work with the wine," she said.

Chefs like Gannon, Wong and Marvothalassitis, who are consciously creating a new cuisine do understand that wine is part of that new cooking and are making an effort to include wine in their approach. In the classic European cuisines, wine and food grew up together. It's exciting to see wine as part of a developing cuisine in a part of the world it has rarely been seen.

Resources:

Fine Wine Imports, 500 Alakawa St., Ste. 214, Honolulu, HI 96817; tel.: (808) 841-7302.

Hawaiian Airlines, 3375 Koapaka St. G-350, Honolulu, HI 96819; Tel.: (808) 835-3700; Fax: (808) 835-3690; www.hawaiianair.com.

What They Say:

This Chardonnay thing is going to fall over one day. There's no more feeling to it, it's becoming generic.

Wolf Blass in Decanter (April '98).

RELATED ARTICLE: Hawaii: Important Wine Market

Hawaii has been an important wine market for Chambers & Chambers of San Francisco since 1979, according to Suzanne Chambers. "We got our start in the Islands in 1979. The company was founded by my father Jack Chambers in 1972. He realized that no one was bringing in good wine to Hawaii," she said. "We just thought it would be a good market to open. When we started out in Hawaii, we had almost no competition," she added.