#hawaiirestaurants #hawaiirestaurantguide #turtlebayresort
Hi, I’m Nadine Kam and welcome to my Hawaii food channel, a Hawaii restaurant guide to some of the newest and/or best cafes and restaurants in Honolulu. This week I headed to the North Shore with fellow foodie Sean Morris for another look at Turtle Bay Resort, which has reemerged from the pandemic with a new look and a new restaurant, Alaia, helmed by its new executive chef Gilles Epié.
Epie made history in 1980 when he became the youngest chef to have earned a Michelin star at Pavillon-Dis-Princes in Paris at age 22, after having trained since age 14 alongside tchefs Alain Senderens and Alain Ducasse at Lucas-Carlton in Paris. More Michelin stars followed at La Vieille Fontaine, his own restaurant Le Miracle, and La Petite Cour.
The resort’s North Shore setting puts Epié in the position of serving guests who range from those who know his background and want the full French Michelin experience, to visitors with kids who just want a plateful of French fries, or who want a burger after coming in from the beach or pool. To his credit, he juggles both sets of expectations with aplomb.
It’s a treat to see French dinner rolls at the table along with La Conviette French butter in its bonbon-style wrapper. From there, you can graze on generously portioned starters as seen in the vid, such as a salad of cooked spinach topped with sweet Kona lobster and crunchy tobiko, sitting in a pool of coconut milk with an accent of wasabi. Also from the sea is a refreshing dish of baby rock shrimp and diced avocado marinated in citrusy leche de tigre.
Two more starters not to be missed are the caramelized octopus ($28) accented with smoked paprika and harissa aioli, accompanied by a lightly mashed salad of baby potatoes, and my favorite dish of the evening, the saffron fish soup Mea’ai Kai Kopa. The chef does not skimp on the saffron, and flaked ono, ahi and mahimahi add to the soup’s rich body, with fillets of mahi giving its final heft. As much as I tried to resist filling up on breads here, once again, a giant “crouton” blanketed in gruyere de Comté was my downfall.
Seafood comprises half the entrees, and these dishes seemed most pedestrian just because so many restaurants offer preparations similar to a sake-soy shutome and pulehu ahi with Tamari. I was most drawn to the linguini Bolognese that combined pork and beef in a fresh, light tomato sauce, finished with shaved Parmesan.
We finished with desserts of dark Valrhona fudge cake and an iced souffle of mango-passionfruit semifreddo with ginger streusel, a refreshing frozen custard topped with a layer of mango and a sprinkling of lime zest that gave it a pretty confetti finish. It’s a nice place to visit if you don’t mind the North Shore drive.
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Alaia is in the Turtle Bay Resort, 57-091 Kamehameha Hwy. Call 866.475.2569.
Video by Nadine Kam © 2021 Thanks so much for watching and joining me on another restaurant excursion! Please like and subscribe for more foodie adventures from Hawaii. And follow me on Instagram @nadinekam.