About Alan Wong's
There is before Alan Wong and there is after Alan Wong. When Chef Alan Wong opened his original King Street restaurant in 1995, he did something no chef had fully articulated before: he defined Hawaii Regional Cuisine as a serious culinary philosophy — not a marketing slogan, not a fusion novelty, but a coherent doctrine rooted in place, in the islands' extraordinary agricultural biodiversity, in the multi-ethnic cooking traditions of its people. He built a movement. He trained a generation. Then, after nearly three decades on King Street, he closed.
The closure was a wound in Honolulu's dining culture. No restaurant filled the space he left. When the announcement came in late 2025 that Alan Wong would reopen at The Kahala Hotel & Resort — replacing the longtime Hōkū's — the response was immediate and visceral. Reservations filled before the doors opened. The dining public understood what it meant: the godfather was back, and he had a landmark property worthy of the comeback.
Alan Wong's at The Kahala Hotel, which opened to the public in April 2026, commands the same philosophy as its predecessor with the infrastructure of a five-star resort behind it. The setting is the Kahala waterfront, serene and removed from the energy of Waikiki. The dining room carries the quiet authority of a place that does not need to announce itself. The classic dishes return — ginger-crusted onaga, the signature Soup and Sandwich, kālua pig preparations that honour the imu tradition — alongside new work shaped by whatever is thriving in Hawaii's farms and waters this week.
Chef Mark Shishido leads the kitchen day-to-day, working in direct consultation with Wong. The Sunday Signature Brunch Buffet, one of Honolulu's most celebrated dining rituals under the old Hōkū's regime, returns in Alan Wong's iteration with the full force of Hawaii's agricultural bounty on display. What distinguishes the cooking here from the hotel fine-dining competition is moral commitment: every ingredient has a story, and the kitchen knows it.
The Food
Hawaii Regional Cuisine at its apex means restraint with provocation, tradition with intelligence. Expect ginger-crusted onaga (long-tailed red snapper) with miso sesame vinaigrette — a dish that has earned the right to remain on the menu indefinitely. Kālua pig in preparations that acknowledge both the imu cooking method and the global pantry Wong has always drawn from. Big Island abalone. North Shore lettuce. Waialua Estate chocolate in the dessert program. The produce calendar drives the menu in ways most hotel restaurants cannot manage. Alan Wong's can, and does.
The prix-fixe dinner format allows the kitchen to shape the evening deliberately — each course building on the last, the wine pairings curated by a sommelier team with deep knowledge of both the French canon and the emerging natural wine producers that pair surprisingly well with Hawaii's produce-driven cooking.
Best Occasion Fit
Alan Wong's is the definitive impress clients restaurant in Honolulu. The address alone — The Kahala Hotel, where presidents and royalty have stayed — communicates a level of discernment that Waikiki's concentrated dining scene cannot match. Bringing a client to Alan Wong's says that you researched. That you know the difference between a hotel restaurant and the hotel restaurant.
For closing deals, the private dining options at The Kahala provide the separation from ambient noise that serious business conversations require. The service is trained to be present without being intrusive. The wine list gives you the tools to host. For a milestone birthday — a fiftieth, a retirement, a significant anniversary — Alan Wong's carries the weight of occasion without needing to dress it up artificially.