Quiora — Restaurant in Honolulu

We chose to celebrate our Wedding Anniversary at the Ritz-Carlton's rustic Italian restaurant, Quiora, which opened just this past November. However, because of our Statewide stay-at-home orders, our State's dine-in options have been severely restricted and October 15 turned out to be perfect timing as our State has been re-opening businesses just as it has allowed Trans-Pacific traveler in. Because we were concerned about aerosolized COVID-19 droplets in enclosed dining spaces, we sought out Quiora's casual alfresco dining layout overlooking Fort DeRussy Beach Park out to the ocean. We made our dinner reservations via OpenTable.com and chose a time that would allow us to catch the colorful sky from the setting sun during the early part of our celebration.

Arriving at the porte cochère, we were directed to the valets who greeted us with Aloha as we dropped off our vehicle into their care. A hostess met us as we exited our vehicle, checked us in against her reservations list, and summoned an elevator for us to take up non-stop to the 8th floor. We exited the elevator lobby and was met by Tina, who had called earlier in the day to confirm our contact information for contact tracing, as she congratulated and thanked us for choosing Quiora and the Ritz-Carlton. We were escorted to their Diamond Head Tower where Quiora's hostess took over and got us seated at a high top (of our choice). Being that this was our first time to dine at Quiora, we surely appreciated the personally escorted tour from the elevator to the restaurant.

Our server, Kayla, immediately congratulated us on our Wedding Anniversary and greeted us with professional yet warm hospitality. We could see her smiles in her eyes and friendly voice as she articulated Quiora's menu of rustic and seasonal Italian cuisine featuring locally-sourced fresh vegetables and seafood. Quiora is noted for their fresh house-made kinds of pasta which their executive Chef specializes in. We toasted our special occasion and placed meal orders with Kayla. Kayla's service partner was Mindy, who interchangeably brought out our dishes at an easy pace and chatted with us while either she or Kayla cleared our table.

From start to finish, our experience and dine was fantastic. Everyone was respectful and truly appreciative of our patronage. They all kept their face masks on throughout the experience. Wewrecomfortambiance. sanitizing wipes as we got...

The world food tour made its first visit to Quiora, the other restaurant on the 8th floor of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Waikiki. It’s a sweeping open space with vistas of Waikiki featuring white marble / quartz flooring and a bar at the far end of the space. There are a number of tables with umbrellas at the leading edge of the space overlooking the pools but these were unoccupied due to inclement weather. We were blessed with a few sprinkles occasionally on our table.

We were early for our 5:30pm reservation so we spent 30 minutes at the bar in La Vie enjoying Monkey 47 gin and tonics and the views. I love this gin and my food partner found it to her liking during a trip to Malaysia.

The wine list at Quiora is relatively short but one has access to the wine list from La Vie. I wanted something from Italy or Spain but my first choice, Tempranillo “La Navilla”, wasn’t available so we selected a 2013 “Vina Cubillo” from Lopez de Heredia. They’re both reasonably priced wines (in the store, not so much at Quiora) and the age made the wine soft (in a good way) and delectable.

Being National Carbonara Day we wanted a carbonara but the only one featured lobster, a no-go for one with a shellfish allergy. None of the appetizers struck a chord with us so we chose the Small Kine Farms Mushroom Campanelle ($35) to share. This was a fabulous dish of pasta accented by fried kale, garlic butter, truffle mushroom coulis, white wine and Parmesan cheese.

Our entrees were the 12oz Snake River Farms American Wagyu Ribeye ($81) and the Australian Costolette di Agnello ($78), both prepared medium rare The ribeye came sliced with grilled broccolini and two sauces; one for the steak, the other for the vegetable. It looked a lot larger than 12oz. The Costolette was a hearty rack of lamb, with crispy eggplant and kale, brussels sprouts, and a caponata chutney. We had Broccoli alla Griglia ($16) and Asparagi Grigliati ($16) for our sides. The vegetables came well-seasoned and were delicious. In hindsight, we didn’t need the broccolini as it was featured with the ribeye.

Dessert was the tried and true Tiramisu ($14) and I enjoyed a double espresso.

We enjoyed our time at Quiora … The food and drink were great, service exemplary and it’s always nice to have a venue overlooking the skyline of Waikiki. La Vie or Quiora? I prefer the former but Quiora was great....

Had such a disappointing experience here. I have never felt the need to leave a bad review after a meal but we were so disappointed with our experience at Quiora, I felt it necessary to share.

On holiday from the UK celebrating my mother’s birthday and thought I’d book the restaurant at the Ritz Carlton expecting a luxury experience. I requested a table with a good view and we were given it but that was the only good thing really.

We found service really slow- the restaurant was pretty empty when we arrived but had to wait quite some time before being seated. Ordered an orange gin and lemonade and the server didn’t know if they sold orange gin. At that I said “no problem, if there is no orange gin, I will just have a Diet Coke”. 20 minutes later the server returned saying that there was no orange gin, did I still want Diet Coke instead- “yes please”. Another 10 minutes passed where finally I asked another server if my drink was coming at any point. It was a Diet Coke, nothing difficult.

We skipped starters but ordered main meals with 3 sides. 2 of the sides came out 5-10 minutes after our meals had been brought out (again after asking). The third side dish came out when we had finished our meals. The point of a side dish is to eat it alongside your meal. The third dish came out so late we sent it back as we had finished our meals.

Finally, we became aware from listening to another table who sat down as we were finishing up, that there was a 5 course chefs tasting menu with wine pairing available. We hadn’t been made aware of that when we sat down and when we asked the server if that was correct, he said “sorry would you like to see the tasting menu now?” Well no, because we have just finished our meals. The food was ok but in no way made up for the service.

We have had some wonderful meals whilst we have been in Honolulu but this was shockingly bad. Add that it was almost $300 for this meal which consisted of 2 mains, 2 sides, two diet cokes, a glass of wine and 1 cocktail. This restaurant is ridiculously overpriced with a dreadful...