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Restaurant Review: MazeIn the first starred New York Times review from the Hawaiian islands, our chief restaurant critic Ligaya Mishan finds intriguing twists on a cuisine that’s already fluid with Asian influences.
I’m dreaming of being back in my hometown of Honolulu, where I went over the holidays and checked in on one of my favorite restaurants. The name of the restaurant is Maze from the Japanese Mazeru. Meals unfold in a room of blond woods like a sauna manqué. The menu draws from the different Asian cuisines in Hawaii, and all of those influences come together alongside native Hawaiian traditions to make a very unique cuisine. The menu is a collaboration between the chef Ki Chung and the mixologist Justin Kawailani Park. Mr. Chung has a gift for opulent subversions and witty takes on local snacks. The meal opens with a set of snacks that might include a deep-cupped Shigoku oyster dressed with a granita made from the pickling liquid of white kimchi, a potato croquette of bewildering lightness crowned with trout roe. One of my favorite snacks when I was growing up was a Spam musubi, but at Maze you get A5 Wagyu cut so thin it’s like a silky kerchief draped over the rice that’s been plumped up with Wagyu fat. It’s just rich beyond rich. Beef cheeks braised overnight with goji berries. It comes with this entourage of banchan. But here the miniaturization really works because it makes you slow down a bit and you’re taking a bite of banchan with each bite of the beef, and really paying attention to the contrast in flavors. Until the late 19th century, Hawaii was an independent kingdom. Under American colonization, restaurants favored ingredients shipped from the mainland. Only in the early 1990s did high-end chefs begin to champion local ingredients and local traditions. You can read my full review at nytimes.com.
In the first starred New York Times review from the Hawaiian islands, our chief restaurant critic Ligaya Mishan finds intriguing twists on a cuisine that’s already fluid with Asian influences.
By Nyt Food
February 6, 2026