NEW YORK CHEFS GET COOKING IN HAWAII
BY APRIL WALLOGA
North End Grill chef Floyd Cardoz kept pace with the high demand for his local ahi tuna with seaweed and quail egg.
A food and wine festival in paradise? You’d be hard-pressed to find a New York toque who’d turn down that gig. Indeed, venerable chefs like Anita Lo, Jonathan Waxman, and Floyd Cardoz took a break from their busy Manhattan restaurants and flew west for the recent Hawaii Food & Wine Festival.
Working with local Hawaiian produce and a bounty of fresh seafood, the mainland chefs whipped up dishes like a quail egg-topped ahi poké (Cardoz) and a kampachi sashimi with avocado, kombu, and radish (Lo). And, even in the rush of service at the sold-out tasting events, they all looked blissfully happy amid the salt air, breezy trade winds, and gorgeous island vistas.
While our own New York City Wine & Food Festival squeezes upwards of 100 happenings into a four day span, the Hawaii Food & Wine Festival, now in its third year, offered a program of 17 events over a comfortable six days. Following a September 1st kickoff gala on Maui’s Kaanapali Beach, events were concentrated in Honolulu—Hawaii’s fine dining epicenter.
The Ian Schrager-designed hotel The Modern (a slice of South Beach on Waikiki) played host to the festival’s hottest ticket: Under the Modern Moon: Morimoto & Friends, a tasting event with artful small bites by 15 chefs, wines from 10 vintners, and cocktail pairings by five mixologists, including PDT’s Jim Meehan. Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto, whose namesake restaurant is stationed inside The Modern, headlined the sunset event. Best dishes of the night ranged from Cardoz’s very popular poké dish to local chef Chai Chaowasaree’s umami-laden plate of Kauai prawn, Kona baby abalone salad, and spicy-sweet dressing. Chaowasaree has two celebrated restaurants in Honolulu and is also the executive chef for Hawaiian Airlines, which sponsored Under the Modern Moon and flew in a slew of culinary talent.
With familiar faces like Milk Bar’s Christina Tosi (who taught Hawaiians how to make her yummy cake truffles), master sushi chef Nobu Matsuhisa, Boston’s Ming Tsai, Chicago’s Grant Achatz and Art Smith, TV’s Adam Richman, and more making the rounds at tastings, elegant dinners, and cooking demonstrations, the festival continued at various Honolulu hot spots through September 9th.
Founded in 2011 by James Beard Award-winning chefs Roy Yamaguchi and Alan Wong, the Hawaii Food & Wine Festival has not only boosted the state’s culinary cred, but also local farming and agriculture. In its first two years, the festival raised close to $500,000 dollars to support organizations like the Maui County Farm Bureau and the Hawaii Agricultural Foundation, as well as area culinary schools to foster the next crop of Hawaiian chefs.
(ORIGINAL ARTICLE)
Hawaii F&W
