Hy's Steak House — Restaurant in Honolulu

The worst of the worst restaurant ever in my entire life. Please do have a dinner at Hy’s steakhouse IF you’d like to get violated by them with despicable racism on your lovely vacation. And what makes it even more horrifying is that they insisted on you to wear certain attire such as shirts with collar for men and No sandals allowed however, from the hostess at front desk to the manager has zero respects and manners toward their own guests especially when they think that “THEY ARE NOT LIKE US”. We went Hy’s on my birthday dinner night and soon as we arrived, the hostess at front desk told my husband to change his attire that its not allowed to dine in this restaurant but we were informed by our concierge that the designer sandals are allowed so i told her about what i heard but she kept saying ‘it’s not allowed’ and so they are going to prepare some suitable rental cloths and shoes for him and led us to wait at the WAITING AREA. I already didn’t appreciate the fact that the way she talked to us with such lookdown attitude, but it was my birthday dinner and i simply didn’t want to ruin our mood for that night so we were about to move to the waiting area and yet there were- i believe that some white families coming into the restaurant wearing sandals and i thought to myself that ‘oh, the waiting room is going to be quite crowded’ Meanwhile, the hostess guided us to the place where the restroom doors are. Where the spare chairs filing up right in front of restrooms. And the white family didn’t come to wait with us. Instead of that, they went straight to their table while me and my husband were sitting in front of restroom. I was trying my best to think that there was some miscommunications so i went up to the front desk to talk to the same hostess and asked her why they are already seated with their sandals on and we are not. She said to me that they were wrongly informed by their hotel. I thought i gave her the same reason so i asked again. “I think i told you the same wrongly informed by hotel issue earlier and yet we are still waiting at the restroom area. I’d like to know why we were treated differently.” And she went dead silence just staring at me no blinking just starring and it was absurd. That could’ve been the last good moment that she would’ve apologized and tried to explain under that unfortunate circumstances. Yet, she gave me a look that made me feel offended and kept starring at me. Eventually, the male manager came up to me and said that i should speak to his staff with manner. This was the manager of this restaurant, Hy’s. I was speechless for a moment realizing that i was actually experiencing racism on my birthday dinner night in Hawaii. Since my husband had difficulties communicating due to the language barrier, he also felt powerless not be able to help me with situations. The manager who told me that his name is Tony said to me that there is nothing he can do accept just saying sorry and assist me to my booked table or if i don’t feel like dining here then i can go to other restaurants around this area. I believe that his apology was not coming from his heart but was coming from me crying hard at so called “WAITING AREA” where everybody could see me on their way to the restrooms. The last thing i wanted to do was crying over that hurtful experience with Hy’s staffs however i couldn’t stop crying because they hit me to the very core of my heart as if they were denying the fact that its my origin, my roots and its identity as who i really am. I am writing to you to let you know that if your staffs keep going to treat your guests with such hideous manners and your guests keep feeling humiliated by their racist attitude then you should change your attire code to...

Where do I even begin? Let me start by giving some context for this review — I always aim to provide the full picture based on my personal experience. We went to Hy’s Steakhouse to celebrate a birthday dinner with a party of 11.

When we arrived, we expected to be escorted to our table, but instead, the hostess asked me, “Are you the first ones here from your party? Where are you seated?” I was completely caught off guard and replied, “I don’t know — aren’t you supposed to tell me?” I wasn’t being rude, just genuinely surprised by the question. We were then asked to wait in a different area while they sorted things out.

7:09 PM: We were finally seated, and drink orders were taken. I ordered a mocktail and my boyfriend ordered a glass of wine. It took nearly 30 minutes for our drinks to arrive — and that was just while we waited for the rest of the party. Everyone had arrived by 8:00 PM, but no one took our food order until 9:00 PM. Our meals didn't arrive until close to 10:00 PM, and we didn’t leave until about 10:30 PM. It was a long dinner marked by poor service, underwhelming food, and a price tag that just didn’t match the experience.

Ambiance

Hy’s markets itself as a high-end steakhouse, and the decor does reflect that. The restaurant was clean, elegantly styled, and had a classic, old-school charm.

Parking

Valet parking is available, which is convenient.

Service

This was one of the most frustrating parts of the evening. While the servers were polite, they didn’t seem to be working in sync. It felt like we had six different servers throughout the night, which you’d think would make service quicker — but it didn’t.

We had to repeatedly ask when our orders would be taken, when the check would arrive, and where our packed leftovers were. We were even asked for our drink orders twice in the same two-minute window. It felt chaotic and disorganized — friendly, yes, but clearly lacking communication and coordination.

Food

We ordered the crab cake, the porterhouse steak for two, and two sides. The crab cake, though small and clearly not meant for sharing, was delicious — perfectly cooked with generous chunks of crab.

The steak was cooked to the right temperature but lacked seasoning. It could have used more butter or something to elevate the flavor. To make matters worse, they brought out the three steak sauces halfway through our meal — by then, we were already halfway done.

The mashed potatoes were forgettable, and the portion sizes for both the potatoes and vegetables felt stingy. Surprisingly, the vegetables ended up being the highlight of the meal.

Others people in our party:

One of my friends found a hair in their carbonara — thankfully, it was replaced quickly. The mac and cheese was watery and bland. One guest ordered a table-side salad, which never came, and they were instead given a basic side salad.

Overall Rating: 2/10

For a high-end steakhouse, Hy’s did not deliver on food, service, or value. We paid \

410 total (including \\

If you're looking for a better experience, I highly recommend The Signature Steakhouse or The Empire. Both offer better-tasting food, excellent service, and actual value for the price — and they even come with a view. We paid less at both places and walked away far...

Hy’s Stack house review:

I’ll preface with this; my boyfriend and I both have served/ are serving in high end steak houses and high end restaurants. We do not generally have very high expectations with the restaurants we eat at. Although the price point and reputation of Hy’s had our bar set very high for this particular venue.

We came here originally from the recommendation from friends and others in our industry. We had previously celebrated our anniversaries at BLT and Ruth Chris. We figured, being our 5 year anniversary, we should branch out and try something new, something that is local to Hawaii/Oahu, to support local during this time.

That being said, we were disappointed/ let down... We were greeted with a bland yet familiar “can I get you anything to drink?”

We asked for a wine menu and the server responded with “the wine by the glass is on the back”. We were looking for a Recommendation for a bottle or maybe his favorite glass since it was our 5 year anniversary. The server never took the time to determine that though.

We ended up ordering a bottle of champagne. The house Sommelier stopped by and breathed a fresh breath of personality to our table. He was personable and great to talk to.

We ordered the buttered shrimp, oyster Rockefeller, and the French onion soup as appetizers. Pass on the shrimp, it was nothing special, something bellow average: You could get better oyster Rockefeller at Ruth Chris. The Rockefeller, was okay. 5/6 of the oysters were okay, one of them was sorta fishy. The onion soup was great. Wonderful flavor and depth. French onion soup is my boyfriends favorite dish, We make it a priority to order it at any restaurant we go to.

Entree’s: I ordered the full rack of lamb and my boyfriend order the Porterhouse and we both added the king crab on the side. My boyfriends crab came out cold, not just “stayed in the window too long” cold, actually clammy, cold. When my boyfriend mentioned it to the food runner, he immediately apologized and took it back to fix the mistake. The disappointing thing is the server didn’t mention, apologized, or acknowledge it. I wondered if he even knew of the mistake. The lamb was good, though the porterhouse was dry in my own opinion. We ordered both medium rare (the temps were good!). The presentation of the porter house was reminiscent of the 80s with dated plating. My wallet paid for Prada, my taste buds received Hollister, unoriginal, mediocre and predictable.

We also ordered the king crab Mac and cheese as well as the Asparagus and béarnaise. The Mac and cheese was good but portion was small compared to other upscale restaurants. The asparagus was laughably simple and pathetic.

I don’t mean to be discouraging, but for the price point the execution left something wanting (bordering mediocre).

We enjoyed a few of the food runners/bussers. They elevated our experience. In all honesty most of the staff seemed passionate besides our server. Maybe we just got the unlucky draw for Hy’s but I would much rather take my money elsewhere. I will not recommend this venue any longer and will rate it a 3/5. I give it a 3 because majority of the staff congratulated us on our anniversary and seemed like they cared about our experience. But you know what they say about one...