Dondero’s wants to make excellent Italian food more accessible on Kauai. After all, Chef de Cuisine Alexis Gutierrez has a clear vision of what he wants diners to experience: “Good food, good service, for hopefully not too much money and
Dondero’s wants to make excellent Italian food more accessible on Kauai.
After all, Chef de Cuisine Alexis Gutierrez has a clear vision of what he wants diners to experience: “Good food, good service, for hopefully not too much money and too much time doing it.”
To that end, the renowned restaurant with a 23-year history at the Grand Hyatt Kauai unveiled a new style and revamped menu earlier this month.
“One of the things that we saw, and heard, was that the look of the restaurant was intimidating to a lot of our guests,” explained manager Andres Alvarez. “We wanted to change the atmosphere a little, make it more inviting for families.”
“We looked at everything,” Gutierrez said, from the entrance and seating process, to the layout of the menus.
Now, it’s all “streamlined, so we can hit ‘em with the good stuff,” he said with a laugh.
The elegant, muraled dining room, with huge ocean-view windows and an outdoor patio area, was not altered. But the service is now described as “casual dining, bistro cafe style.” The servers are dressed like those at a trattoria in Italy — crisp dress shirts with the sleeves rolled up and a long apron — rather than the formal uniforms that Alvarez described as “stuffy, for lack of a better word.”
More importantly, the menu has been arranged into traditional Italian groupings of antipasti, soup and salad, Neapolitan-style pizza, pastas and risotto, meats and fish, and side dishes. Some signature dishes remain, and classics are available upon request. But “we wanted to bring a solid, contemporary flavor to it,” Gutierrez said.
And the entire menu is now presented on a single tri-fold, rather than the multiple fancy menus of the past (The wine list still deserves its very own menu, however. This is an high-end Italian restaurant, after all).
The restaurant “always did these nice, composed plates before,” but diners often exchanged the sides, Gutierrez explained.
So why not simplify it? Group the selections by type, and let people design their desired meal.
“It’s more about having fun with the menu,” Alvarez said.
Gutierrez’s goal for the new menu was “keeping it simple, keeping it delicious.”
That certainly summed up my recent dining experience there, as I was treated to a six-course series of small portions, chosen by the chef. All were certainly Italian, but none were predictable.
As Gutierrez explained afterward, his dishes are “not the standard thing you’ll get anywhere else. What’s unique to Dondero’s is completely different. You will not find (them) anywhere else.”
The first item Gutierrez sent out was the prosciutto bruschetta ($11). The crusty bruschetta was layered with creamy goat cheese and fig-black pepper jam and heaped with thinly sliced meat, for an earthy antipasto with a sweet note.
Next was the arugula salad ($10), which featured orange morsels, fennel, almonds and black olives. Spicy and fresh, it was loaded with ricotta salata, a salted and dried ricotta made by Gutierrez, which gave every bite a sensational saltiness.
The Hamakua mushroom soup ($10) sounds humble but was, quite simply, magnificent. One of many vegetarian and gluten-free items available, the peppery soup was full of tender slices of Hamakua mushrooms, grown on the Big Island, studded with crunchy porcini croutons and dolloped with white truffle cream.
The next offering also highlighted Hawaii-grown goodness: the Molokai sweet potato agnolotti ($22). The pasta pillows were dressed with sage brown butter, brightened by the sweetness of dried currants, the tang of goat cheese and the crunch of toasted macadamia nuts. Scattered across the top were dried sage leaves from the restaurant’s herb garden — a crystallized edible garnish that was intriguing as well as tasty.
But the crowning glory was the cioppino ($32). Rather than a stew, this was an artfully arranged plate of seafood delicacies. A juicy lobster tail perched atop a grouping of moist mahi mahi, a cluster of broth-laden clams and a beautifully grilled scallop. Crab morsels and basil pasta formed the bottom layer, while a rich tomato bouillabaisse, added just before serving, tied it all deliciously together.
The final touch was a gorgeous dessert: lilikoi braised pineapple crostata ($9). The warm, pineapple-laden pastry was topped with a mound of coconut sorbet, delicately flavored with lemongrass and ginger — just one of the several unique sorbet and gelato recipes Gutierrez has crafted for Dondero’s using fresh island ingredients and flavors.
The recent changes had an almost immediate effect. “It’s been a lot busier,” said Gutierrez, who has been chef at Dondero’s for 16 months. “It seems like this is something the people wanted. It’s exciting to see.”
And many diners are eating family style, choosing selections from across the menu and sharing the dishes.
“You can see them enjoying their evening,” which is what it’s all about, said Alvarez, who moved from the Grand Hyatt’s other full-service restaurant, Tidepools, less than two months ago to oversee the redesign.
“Food is fun. They’re having fun with the experience.”
Dondero’s is located at the Grand Hyatt Kauai Resort and Spa, 1571 Poipu Road, Koloa, and is open from 6-10 p.m., Thursday through Monday. For reservations, call 240-6456, or go to http://kauai.hyatt.com/en/hotel/dining/Donderos. Reservations can also be made at www.opentable.com.
