The Restaurant at Hana-Maui Resort — Restaurant in Hawaii

I typically don't enter reviews less than three stars after one experience. You can check my previous reviews, I usually mark it up to a bad night and move on. Let's start with the good, our server, Styles was very nice and friendly. Bottom line is something needs to improve for this restaurant to be on par with the resort.

The rest added up to a very disappointing experience. Instead of enjoying the lovely sea and stars from our room at Travaasa I'm taking time to write this review up right away, It is unacceptable that a poor dining experience can greatly negatively impact a stay at a very well regarded, expensive and lovely resort.

We had dinner on a Monday night - I suspect something was amiss in the kitchen. The menu was inventive and interesting but well above what the kitchen was able to put out.

The meal started with two cocktails we couldn't finish. One of the signature cocktails was what sounded like a delicious, unique, spicy, fruity tequila drink but came served in a pint glass with a plastic straw, it just felt so out of place in what should be a fine dining restaurant. The other was a negroni served up - which is an unusual preparation for a negroni, it didn't taste good and should at least be asked for up or on the rocks if you are going to serve it up.

At that point we decide to switch to a bottle of Rose. Which we put in before well before any food was at the table yet we sat and waited as long as we could before it was delivered 10+ min after our appetizer.

After the underwhelming appetizers we were 90 min post seating and our main course had not been delivered (late Monday night nowhere near capacity). We asked Style's to cancel our entrees but he went back and found them ready to be delivered (the restaurant has runners). We ate a bit but the special (risotto) was dry and not very good and our other fish dish was overdone. Don't put risotto on as a special if it is too difficult to time.

After expressing our feedback a few times no managers decided to come from the back to talk to us (we are mid-westerners, we are nice, just want to offer feedback for improvement). Different items were taken off the bill after we provided feedback, which was fine but not what we wanted, we just want them to get better not be forced to write off food.

I wish we would have ordered pizza, grabbed a bottle of wine and sat on the deck in our lovely seaside cottage...

The ambiance, views, and food are great.

The hostess was nice and accomdating, but never brought the wine menu after offering to and my telling her I'd like it.

The server showed up about 15 minutes later, after the two tables next to us has ordered and were served their drinks. Apologizes. Once she did show up, we'd already decided what we'd like to eat, so we ordered that at the same time.

Drinks come out, food followed, brought out by someone else - I guess kitchen staff?

Had our food. Never checked on until we'd been finished for about 8-10 minutes, and of course with an apology. Again. Asked for leftovers to be packaged to take out. She brought a box and didn't offer to pack them, which is something that would normally be offered in a restaurant at this price point.

Brought the check. I filled it out. Then we watched her stand and talk to another table for 7-8 minutes while looking over at us directly several times. She knew that by then, we were ready to fork out our money and leave.

Ended up taking my tab to the bartender who was happy to help.

Don't remember the server's name, but she was one of whomever was on today's schedule.

Please let her know that apologizing profusely twice in a restaurant at this caliber isn't a sustainable...

So there are not many dinner options in Hana unfortunately. Since we were staying at Travasa we decided to come here for dinner. We actually stood at the entrance for a long time because there was no one there to seat us!! It then took another 10+ minutes for our server to show up. They told us they were understaffed, it definitely showed! We had the garlic shrimp as an appetizer and it was delicious!!!! I highly recommend it! They give a small slice of toast to soak up the buttery sauce and it just isn't enough! We asked for more and were told it costs $1 each for a slice! Whoa!!! We got them anyway since we weren't sure how long dinner would take! For dinner i had the seafood pasta which had mahi mahi and shrimp ( only 2!). It was a similar sauce to the shrimp appetizer and was supposed to have chili flakes but there weren't any. It did taste really good though, especially with the fennel! We were too tired for dessert but the lilikoi cheesecake...