Chef Mavro's
Chef Mavro's is Hawaiian haute cusine. It is a special sort of fusion
cuisine, combining techniques and ingredients from French haute cuisine
with the wonderful ingredients and flavors of Hawaii. The flavors are
intensified and concentrated, the sauces richer and more focused. Foie
gras and duck breast appear. He uses and cooks for French wines.Does this fusion work?
Actually, it does. You have to be in the right mood for it, but it works.
For example, consider the foie gras. This is a classic French preparation, except that Chef Mavro's serves it with tart Hawaiian berries. The match is excellent. The Pacific lobster with baby carrots, little potatoes, and snap beans in a lobster broth was wonderful. It brought back memories. The real star of the meal were the lamb chops. Chef Mavro's uses Hawaiian lamb and cooks it to perfection. We aren't even sure of what he did, only that we had the best lamb chops we have had in a long time here.
Some notes were more French than Hawaiian. We had the blue cheese and filo pastry with an old vines sweet zinfandel and loved it. The cherry tart was more Atlantic than Pacific to be sure, but the malasada, despite its Portuguese origin is now wholly of the islands, and wonderfully rounded off our meal.
All told the meal was distinctly Chef Mavro's. We greatly enjoyed it. If you come, do come with an open mind. The cooking is not strictly French, nor is it American, nor is it Hawaiian. There is an intellligence in the kitchen, and the food is best enjoyed with one's mind open.
