For our last day in the Waikiki/Honolulu area before we head over to the western part of Oahu for Aulani, we decided to splurge on something a little nicer to eat. Of all the choices we had, we decided on this Bar Māze place that the internet had raved about. The dining room is quite small, and when we entered, we were seated at the counter. We noticed that many of the cooks were quite young, but they were also very professional with a lot of attention on making sure the food is cooked right. I don’t know much about Hawaii fine cuisine, but I was getting good vibes.
Ambiance & Service
The decor has many wooden accents similar to what you would find in a Japanese restaurant. However, that was pretty much it. The restaurant feels very open and not loud. They were playing 80s and 90s music which we thought was quite funny. In some ways, it reminded me of Blanca in Brooklyn in terms of just being laid back and serving good food. The meal as a whole took about 2.5 hours when all is said and done. Despite it being 4 courses and some change, we never felt rushed at all.
What’s cool about this restaurant and I wish more did this is that the price ($175 per person) includes a drink pairing (your choice of alcoholic or non-alcoholic). You also have the option of adding supplements for certain courses. In the second course tonight, you can add kaluga hybrid caviar ($80 for 2 people) which we skipped. For the third course, we did add the wagyu supplement ($120 for 2 people).
The service was impeccable.
Food
Here are the seasonal snack course drinks.
The non-alcoholic left which was mainly stone fruit peach and pear carbonation. This was quite refreshing.
The alcoholic right was stone fruit, yuzu, sake, and champagne. My partner enjoyed this.
The seasonal snack course was charred ono, smoked salmon on top of Japanese toasted milk bread, and salish oyster. The ono was really nicely smoked and soft. The smoked salmon complemented the soft milk bread magnificently. The salish oyster resembled typical pacific oysters where they are much less salty but with a lot of cucumber essences.
Here are the first course drinks.
The non-alcoholic left was mainly pomegranate, lychee yogurt, and clarified tomato water.
The alcoholic right was guava, bergamot, tomato water, shochu, vodka, and citrus bubbles.
The first course came with hamachi, perilla-pumpkin seed pesto, and white kimchi-tomato granita. The hamachi was cut into small strips like noodles and was served with local veggies, smoked char, and white kimchi. In all, this tasted like a very fresh, light salad to start the palette.
Here are the second course drinks.
The non-alcoholic left was egg white, cucumber, and lemon. This basically was a cold, yet refreshing drink.
The alcoholic right was cucumber, lemon, aloe, yuzu, egg white, aquavit, and absinthe.
The second course came with scallop, seaweed dashi butter sauce, ogo, and daikon. The scallop was cooked perfectly. The seaweed dashi butter sauce was salty and rich, but that’s what the brioche is for.
The second course also came with a brioche, that comes from a local bread shop and was meant to be a vessel to soak the sauce from the scallop dish.
As a preview of the wagyu to come, they gave us a A5 wagyu tartare which has a touch of a wasabi on a potato chip. If you didn’t want to order the wagyu supplement for the next course, you can still add-on the wagyu tartare. I’m not sure how much the tartare add-on would have been since our other couple decided to go with the wagyu midway thru the second course.
Here are the third course drinks.
The non-alcoholic left was black tea smoked over pine wood. It actually worked quite well with the meat.
The alcoholic right was a belle glos pinot noir 2021. The pinot was quite nice.
The third course was a triple seared A5 miyazaki wagyu ribeye and local banchan. The banchan came with locally source lettuce perilla, aged kimchi, local fern, and cucumber. The banchan was delicate and pretty good. There was some bean paste to use as a dip, but it really wasn’t necessary since everything was so rich. The wagyu was insanely soft and rich. It might look small, but you don’t want to have too much richness or else it will make you feel bad later on.
The third course also included freshly milled tsuyahimi rice and wagyu dressing to share. This rice has wagyu drippings soaked into it along with 4 pieces of uni on top. The rice was delicious with the wagyu drippings, but be warned that this is pretty rich. The rice is basically soaking itself in wagyu fat.
The fourth and last course was a seasonal shaved ice which had campari-rose water, lychee yogurt, raspberry, cocoa nib meringue, lemon curd, and mint. Despite having many ingredients, I actually quite liked this though someone in my party did not. It’s basically shaved ice with some citrus toppings, and it was a good palette cleanser for me.
The Donut with Caviar was given to us as a celebratory item. It was a house made honey donut with banana filling and caviar on top. It was a nice single bite.
They closed the night with they call Bourbon on the Rocks which was a chocolate ganache with some powder that looks like the rocks. It tastes like a good chocolate ganache, and it was fun to see it with the rocks.
Final Verdict
Bar Māze was very delicious, and for the price point compared to NYC, it’s quite comparable to many Michelin restaurants. The food is quite excellent and sources much of its ingredients locally from around the area. The non-alcoholic pairing is commendable, but it still falls short compared to my favorite Atomix Bar. Some of the drinks were not as inventive, but they still did taste pretty good. Because they did a pretty good job nailing the non-alcoholic pairing, the food not surprisingly was also very delectable.
If you are in Waikiki and want to check out some pretty good high end tastings, we highly recommend you to check out Bar Māze.
Yelp Jabs
They have 4 parking stalls available. Otherwise, you’ll need to look for street parking. They don’t validate if you park at Salt.
We parked at Restaurant Row which was very close. The cost of parking after 5 PM was a flat $6.
So really, you got 3 real plates of food. If you have any appetite I doubt you’d be full at the end. Just so that we’re clear folks, fine dining does NOT mean bird food, however tasty they are… I got 2 tiny pieces of waygu. It’s insulting. Good servers can read the guests and leave them alone when appropriate. They are not in that camp. And they come back every 5 minutes asking if they can take stuff away from the table. Very interruptive.
If you have an appetite, there are things called buffets. These types of restaurants are not meant for you to indulge in abundance. Fine dining means higher quality food, which in some cases depending on cost might mean there are smaller portions. I think a key thing this Elitist is forgetting is the restaurant included a drink pairing, which normally goes for an extra $100+ easy in many restaurants. Personally I find a 4 course meal with drink pairing to be fine at $175. Atomix Bar was $270 before tax and fees for 9 courses.
Revisions
- Apr 27, 2023 - Initial revision.