Best Restaurants in Big Island (Hawaii)
Five essential tables, ranked by occasion.
$ Under $25 | $$ $25–60 | $$$ $60–120 | $$$$ Over $120
Big Island (Hawaii)’s Top 5
Merriman's Market Café (Waimea)
Merriman's in Waimea is the original Hawaii Regional Cuisine restaurant — Peter Merriman was one of the founders of the movement that defined what Hawaiian cooking could be when it stopped importing from the mainland and...
Brown's Beach House
Brown's Beach House occupies the oceanfront at the Fairmont Orchid — one of the Kohala Coast's landmark luxury resorts — with a dining terrace positioned to face the Pacific sunset that the Kohala Coast provides with the...
Holuakoa Gardens & Café
Holuakoa is the upcountry village where Kona coffee is grown — 1,400 feet above the coast, in the cloud forest belt where the combination of volcanic soil, morning cloud cover, and afternoon sunshine produces the coffee ...
CanoeHouse at Mauna Lani
CanoeHouse sits on the lava-rock shoreline of the Mauna Lani resort, adjacent to the ancient Hawaiian fishponds that the resort has preserved — centuries-old aquaculture systems carved from the lava that the Hawaiian kin...
Lava Lava Beach Club
Lava Lava Beach Club delivers exactly what the name promises — a beachfront bar and restaurant where the dress code is barefoot and the mai tai arrives within three minutes of sitting down. The Hawaii Regional menu bring...
KPC (Kohala Coast Provision Company)
KPC celebrates the Parker Ranch — the 130,000-acre cattle ranch in the Waimea highlands that makes the Big Island one of America's most important beef-producing landscapes. The Hilton Waikoloa Village's steakhouse treats...
Dining on the Big Island of Hawaii
The Big Island is the youngest and largest island in the Hawaiian archipelago — still growing from the active Kilauea volcano — and the most agriculturally diverse. The Parker Ranch in the Waimea highlands is one of America's largest cattle ranches. The Kona coast produces the most celebrated American coffee. The Hamakua Coast grows mushrooms and lettuces of exceptional quality. The waters off the coast provide Pacific seafood in extraordinary variety. No other Hawaiian island has this range of premium ingredients.
Hawaii Regional Cuisine
Hawaii Regional Cuisine was invented on the Big Island — specifically by Peter Merriman in Waimea in 1988 — as a response to the mainland-import dependency of Hawaiian hotels. The movement's founding principle was simple: Hawaii's farms, ranches, and waters produce ingredients of world-class quality; restaurants should use them instead of shipping in inferior substitutes. Merriman's and the restaurants that followed in the movement's wake have transformed Hawaiian dining from a parody of Polynesian cliché into one of America's most interesting regional cuisines.
The Kohala Coast
The Kohala Coast — the sunny leeward coastline on the Big Island's northwest side — is Hawaii's most concentrated luxury resort corridor. The Mauna Lani, Fairmont Orchid, and Hilton Waikoloa Village anchor a stretch of coastline whose ancient Hawaiian fishponds, petroglyphs, and lava-rock shoreline provide a historical and natural backdrop that the resort restaurants have increasingly learned to engage with rather than merely decorate.
Practical Notes
The Big Island has two airports — Kona International (west side) and Hilo International (east side). Most luxury resorts and restaurants are on the Kohala Coast (Kona side). Waimea (upcountry) is 40 minutes from the coast. Car rental is essential. Card payments are universal at all resort and serious restaurants.