About Arancino di Mare
The Arancino restaurant group has been making the case for serious Italian cooking in Honolulu since the late 1990s. Arancino di Mare — the group's Waikiki flagship at the Waikiki Beach Marriott Resort on Kalakaua Avenue — has won the Honolulu Magazine Hale 'Aina Award for Best Italian Restaurant in Hawaii eight consecutive years. That is not a mild endorsement from local diners. That is a sustained argument about quality.
What distinguishes Arancino di Mare from the Italian restaurants that proliferate in tourist districts everywhere is the uncompromising sourcing. Executive Chef Daisuke Hamamoto imports specific ingredients from Italy that are central to the dishes they appear in — not as a marketing point, but as a commitment to the cooking being what it claims to be. San Marzano tomatoes from the Campania. Specific pasta varieties from producers whose work cannot be replicated with alternatives. Porcini mushrooms in season, from Italy, not from a shelf. The result is a kitchen that produces Italian food which a Roman or a Milanese would recognise as genuine.
The Pacific context is integrated thoughtfully rather than forced. Fresh Manila clams appear alongside the Italian shellfish preparations, creating variations on the canon that feel earned rather than novelty. Local ahi in carpaccio preparations that acknowledge both the Italian technique and the Hawaiian ingredient. The signature pizza with shrimp — a Waikiki refinement of the Neapolitan tradition — demonstrates that the kitchen has understood the rules well enough to deviate from them productively.
The open-air terrace dining on Kalakaua Avenue captures the Waikiki energy at its most pleasurable: the warm Pacific air, the distant sound of the ocean, the movement of the most famous boulevard in Hawaii just beyond the terrace edge. The room inside is cooler and more intimate, with the polished warmth of a well-funded Italian restaurant that does not mistake formality for quality.
The Menu
The à la carte dinner menu offers antipasti from around $18–$20, pasta dishes from $27–$35, and entrées ranging higher. The lobster bisque — a Waikiki institution in its own right — is the appetiser that returns most consistently to the tables around you. The handmade pasta program changes seasonally; the fresh Manila clams linguine is a permanent fixture that justifies the trip. The wine list is Italian-focused and intelligently curated, with the Campanian whites providing the best partnerships for the seafood-forward menu.
Best Occasion Fit
Arancino di Mare is Waikiki's best first date restaurant for anyone whose instinct is Italian rather than Hawaiian. The combination of impeccable sourcing, open-air terrace, and genuinely warm Italian hospitality creates an evening that is romantic without being theatrical. At $$$ rather than the $$$$ of the hotel tasting-menu competition, it is also the most accessible of Waikiki's premium date restaurants — which makes it a stronger choice when calibrating the occasion correctly matters.
For birthdays, the Italian tradition of treating a celebratory dinner as a multi-hour event — antipasti, pasta, secondi, dolci, espresso, digestivo — aligns naturally with the restaurant's pace and format. Eight consecutive years as Hawaii's best Italian restaurant communicates that this is a table with standing.