The 23 Essential Maui Restaurants

Dry mein at Sam Sato’s | Photo by Bill Addison

Where to eat and drink in one of the most beautiful places on earth

Everything you’ve heard about Maui’s radical beauty is true: the undulation of the mountains and the lowlands, the cream-toned beaches that yield seamlessly to sea and sky, the volcanic rocks slicing through the million shades of green. Maui is larger than O‘ahu, though the forested reserves bookending its eastern and western points mean that its more populous towns are concentrated toward the island’s center — ideal for short, scenic road trips between restaurant-hopping.

Scores of dining rooms take advantage of the natural splendor, overlooking beaches or sitting along foothills or high perches ideal for watching pyrotechnic sunsets. But just as often, seeking out the most righteous meals in Maui means venturing to a plain-faced strip mall. A concise cross section of options defines this list: a handful of tourist destinations worthy of their popularity, a few locals’ hangouts for variations on traditional Hawaiian fare, and a requisite pit stop for pineapple-macadamia nut pie.

Update, Spring 2021: Maui’s post-pandemic restaurant scene is a mixed bag. During 2020’s near-complete shutdown of tourism, many favorite spots changed hands, downsized, or permanently closed their doors. Restaurants barely stayed afloat, often thanks to owners who filled every role from host to line cook to dishwasher. But a surprising number of new places opened too, some from laid-off kitchen staff who seized the opportunity to launch their own businesses. The “eat local” trend blossomed during the shutdown as well, resulting in new relationships between restaurants and island farmers, and a plethora of Maui-made products on menus and in grocery stores.

Note: Due to COVID-19 safety guidelines, restaurants are currently running at 50 percent capacity. Do yourself a favor and book far in advance, especially if you want that sunset-splashed table.

Prices per person, excluding alcohol:

$ = Less than $10

$$ = $10 - $20

$$$ = $20 - $40

$$$$ = More than $40

Shannon Wianecki writes about food, culture, and native ecosystems for publications including BBC, Smithsonian, and Hana Hou — the Hawaiian Airlines magazine. Growing up in Hawai’i her favorite snack was raw opihi (limpet) fresh off the rocks.

Part of the Eater Guide to Hawai‘i



from Eater - All https://ift.tt/2yIpWtn

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Comforting Braised Pig Feet Recipe Perfect for Your Pressure Cooker

Image
Louiie Victa Chef Jenny Dorsey’s recipe is a testament to the trotter’s versatility When I go grocery shopping, I always look for pig feet. In the sea of unrecognizably standard-looking cuts of animal muscles at grocery stores — disk-shaped loins, round humps of pork butt — trotters are always the anomaly. They look most precisely as they were: feet, hooves, the tired bones and tissue that kept an animal upright its whole life. Unfortunately for pig feet, their look hasn’t exactly made them a popular part of the mainstream American diet. As Cecil Adams wrote back in 2016, one of the challenges in encouraging more Americans to consume offal and organ meat is that “organs resemble, well, body parts: any steak slapped on a plate looks like dinner, while a lovingly presented calf heart may suggest an autopsy.” And, Adams added, there’s the “socioeconomic stigma…that had a racial component too,” which is only exacerbated by “travelogue shows [like] Bizarre Foods .” Despite being mali
Read more

Beyond Impossible: The Sanitarium and World War II Past of Meat Substitutes

Image
Photo by Tom Kelley/Getty Images We’ve come a long way from John Harvey Kellogg’s “protose cutlets” It’s no stretch to say that fake meat is having a moment . With the popularity of brands such as Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat joining fast-food menus and grocery store aisles alike, plant-based meats are no longer seen as a sad option for vegetarians long denied flavor with meat substitutes (though, as we know, plenty of vegetarian food is packed with flavor), but for anyone who enjoys a good burger, fried chicken, or nuggets. But are meat substitutes really the future of eating? Maybe by necessity as food resources run out, but not likely by choice. In fact, despite the big money raked in by Impossible and Beyond over the past few years, industrial meat consumption in America is actually on the rise. This week on Gastropod , Cynthia Graber and Nicola Twilley see how the not-sausage gets made, with visits to the Impossible Meat lab and Meati , a Colorado-based start-up that’
Read more

Restaurant Workers Are Combing Through Job Listings — But They’re Not Applying

Image
Photo by Dominic Lipinski/PA Images via Getty Images Culinary Agents CEO Alice Cheng on the restaurant worker shortage and how workers will return to the industry ‘on their timeframe’ As restaurants across the country expand capacity, reopen for indoor dining, and prepare for a new season of outdoor service, owners are struggling to find staff to meet their needs. Many workers still don’t feel safe returning to work during a pandemic. Others don’t want to fight with patrons over health and safety guidelines. Some may have left town or joined another industry while they were laid off and will return when the timing and opportunity are right. Alice Cheng, CEO of hospitality industry job search engine Culinary Agents , has a macro view of the hiring trends across various cities and states and is a careful observer of candidate behavior. “A lot of the data that we see is there’s so many people looking at jobs, more so than in the past, and they’re waiting,” Cheng told Eater’s Digest
Read more