Chef Colin Hazama is having a good year. He is four months in as the chef de cuisine at Kaua‘i Grill, a Jean-George Vongerrichen signature restaurant at the St. Regis Princeville Resort, and was one of 26 semifinalists across the nation to be nominated for a James Beard “Rising Star Chef of the Year” award. The James Beard awards are often touted as “the Oscars” of the food world: the best of the best and everyone in the industry is watching.
Hazama, a local boy from O‘ahu who started working at Alan Wong’s restaurant as a teenager, followed a culinary path that led him to San Francisco and eventually back home as executive chef at Rumfire at the Sheraton in Waikiki, until he heard Jean-George, the world famous chef, was searching for someone to run for his newest venture. Hazama secured the position, and after a crash course in New York with Jean-George, he came to the North Shore of the Garden Isle to run Kaua‘i Grill.
Hazama creates a range of expertly-prepared Jean-George dishes nightly, like the appetizer of grilled octopus lathered with a black-pepper jam over delicate ribbons of sweet Kula onions. The octopus, boiled for two hours to become soft and tender, is accompanied by a green smear of tarragon purée which at first seems like simply an artistic splash on the plate. But once all the flavors are put together in one bite it’s a complete, complex delight.
There’s a reason for the restaurant’s name; you can order a number of meats (steaks, ‘ahi) simply grilled, and pick an accompanying sauce for it, such as béarnaise, black-pepper jam (yes, the same one on the octopus), soy-miso mustard, or J & G Steaksauce, named after one of Jean-George’s steakhouses. One meat dish not on the simply-grilled menu, a seared sirloin with gingered mushrooms and a foaming soy-caramel sauce over white asparagus, is rich and lovely and a sure thing, and takes the thinking out of playing matchmaker with your meats and sauces.
Kaua‘i Grill breaks out of the dessert box by instead of offering the chocolate soufflé found on many a menus offers a liliko‘i one, made with fresh, local passion fruit. A sweet and tart serum is poured into the middle of the soufflé at the table by a server, and is as fun to watch as to eat. The pineapple carpaccio with lemon sorbet and cilantro dotted with raspberries is as beautiful to look at as to eat.
“It’s something we don’t have anywhere else on Kaua‘i; a Jean-George restaurant…to be able to have his food product and his consistency” is amazing, Jennifer Vaanderland said of the Jean-George signature restaurant. Vaanderand is sales manager and spokesperson for the St. Regis Princeville Resort. Described as “contemporary American cuisine,” the menu is concise and complete, with many of the dishes found on the Kaua‘i Grill menu also found in New York, San Francisco, Bora Bora or another Jean-George restaurant somewhere on the globe. Kaua‘i Grill is dedicated to keeping 30 percent of their menu made with local products, so substitutions are made for certain dishes, like the sea bass roasted in nuts and seeds in a sweet and sour jus swimming with tomatoes and pearl onions here is made with moi.
You can learn everything you want to know about the moi dish served at Kaua‘i Grill by expert servers like Anela Bargamento.
“You know that you can ask a question and they will know the answer,” Vaanderland said of the staff. “Their training first and foremost is about the food.” Not only does Bargamento explain the signature preparation — “the nuts and seeds grinded and sifted” — she describes the composition of the moi-“Pacific threadfin, flaky and mild, not as oily as sea bass.” Bargamento will also reveal the Hawaiian history of moi, the fish of the ali‘i, and admit it is farm-raised, which is probably the only way it can be on the menu every night.
This stellar service is what St. Regis’ parent company Starwood tries to achieve with their properties, Vaanderland said. Starwood has what they call an “individual development plan,” also known as “what you want to do when you grow up.”
“It’s a program where one day a week you spend a day with your mentor in their department to see if you want to pursue that area as a career,” Vaanderland said, explaining that an employee in food and beverage, for example, can go and check out front desk or sales, to find where their strengths are, what they like, what they don’t like. “And you still get paid. It’s not like an internship,” she said.
Watching servers like Bargamento move swiftly around, and later meeting Hazama as he glided out of the kitchen for a quick chat, they are what is remarkable about Kaua‘i Grill — the level of excellence in what they do and how much they obviously enjoy it.
Hazama was fresh-faced, wearing a large, easy smile when he stepped out of the kitchen to talk on a busy night last week, so it was hard to believe when he said things were a bit hectic in the kitchen just a few minutes earlier. Hazama said is thrilled to be working on Kaua‘i, but admits it’s quite an adjustment from Waikiki. When he gets off work now, most of his side of the island is lights out, as opposed to Honolulu, one of those cities that rarely sleeps. Hazama is in the kitchen every night they are open, ensuring hard work for him and consistently impressive food for us who patron the place.
“You come up and try it once, and then it will be the place you come for every special occasion, every birthday,” Vaanderland said.
Kaua‘i Grill is open Tuesday through Saturday from 5:30 p.m. to 10 p.m.
