Aina Kauai Restaurant — Restaurant in Kauai

Disappointed & Ridiculously Expensive A stark and lunch to go cafe vibe Upon entering. Felt cold and unwelcoming with terrible music playing. Palate cleanser to start ;( Bad start. The shave ice had a butterfly pea flower foam (tasteless) the ice was ice and the shiso sorbet tasty but really should of been more … also palette cleanser should be mid meal.(intermezzo, a palate cleanser) & Amuse-bouche (a single bite to entice your tastebuds, usually a gift from chef) is what should be served first in a fine dining (which this is not) atmosphere. So next, The local salad was very petite and the mango dressing a bit too tart.

The Ahi Sashimi (4 thin thin slices) was fresh but the toppings were too sparse and each bite did not have the impact for lack of toppings. Again portion way too small.

The sanshu mori the blanched greens were tasteless and the macadamia butter delicious but not enough mac butter for the bite. The eggplant was my favorite dish of the night ~ sad that eggplant in agebitdashi sauce wins the night. Wish there had been more. Braised heart of palm (tasted canned, not fresh) was not memorable at all. The opah was so dry it tasted like extra well done ahi dry dry dry (pretty bad and pre cooked so even made drier) the mango miso sauce was decent and needed as the opah was beyond overcooked. Opah should be seared medium rare not extra well done. Tiny tiny portion too which was fine as it was not good. The purple sweet potato chip on the opah was good but only 1 tiny tiny half bite.

Next the Robata (grilled seasonal vegetables and meats ) the Steak was very well done and chewy (hate well done steak) the opah fish cake was burnt and i had to send it back. The chicken bites were dry and i gave them to my friend. The coleman mustard sauce was so hot like wasabi and did not go with the meats. The corn (cold) and shishito pepper(not cooked enough) skewer was Pretty much a fail on this and most courses.. Basically everything tasted pre cooked and a lot of dishes were not hot or warmed back to proper temp.

The tempura shrimp was overcooked. The few veggies were not memorable . The kale tempura tiny leaf was good This course was just ok.

The last course, Shokuji and it was a bowl of completely tasteless overcooked rice and we had to pour the dashi broth on it to give it any flavor and then it was a soup and hard to eat with chopsticks. Still flavorfless.

They should of served spoons with most dishes as in order to get the minuscule amount of sauce to vegetable or meat or rice or fish was impossible to get on a chopstick (i am from Hawaii and eaten with chopsticks all of my life) these courses served with chopsticks only did not make sense. Nothing made sense here. the desert was a matcha cake which i gave away and the mango sorbet was ok but lacked much real fresh mango flavor.(i assume they used a store bought purée for this) The kanten was too rubbery gross and fell apart. The portions are incredibly small and most do not taste great. All in All $200 + per person and we only had water and 2 mocktails at the table and 1 beer. To me, this whole dinner was a rip off. If you are spending $200+ a person i would think table cloths and candles on table and proper service. This lacked all. The atmosphere inside is more like a lunch to go cafe and very little ambiance. Cement floors cold and not cozy and wood chairs most uncomfortable. Not a proper dining room. We Could barely hear the server when she was explaining our courses. Also when you get a little plate with three items it would be nice for server to explain in what order the chef recommends we should eat the tiny bites…. We were all clueless!!! Would i go back?? Never! I travel the world and i was so excited that perhaps we were going to have a delicious dining experience & restaurant on our little island that lacks good restaurants. This is the most despicable restaurant experience here yet! I was hungry when i left and angry that this dinner was more than disappointing and left little good to...

Absolutely incredible restaurant and really the only fine dining on the island. Sure you can easily spend $200-300+ for two people at other places (Merrimans, Roy's Eating House, Stevenson Library, JO2, to name a few that we visited this week) but if you are a foodie, you know none of those meals while good (some even very good), are going to deliver the extraordinary or "wow" factor you are searching for. Something you can readily find on Oahu just didn't exist on Kauai until now. For those that don't understand what Japanese Kaiseki is (they don't serve California rolls!), or have an open mind beyond "steak and potatoes", or need everything to blow your tastebuds, perhaps this is not the place for you. If you crave the sugar bomb cocktails of all the other establishments, go there. For those that are globally travelled and epicurious, this is your place.

It's a intimate restaurant (14-20 seats on any given night) and I highly recommend sitting at the bar if you want to engage with the chef. It's a 9 course tasting menu (some courses have multiple components). You will immediately notice how peacefully and efficiently the kitchen is operating. The Japanese perfectionist mentality is evident by how clean the kitchen is. Every employee knows their role down to the minutest detail, timed down to the second. Nothing is out of order. Geek out at the orchestra in the kitchen. Dishes were superb in execution. From the starting palate cleanser, to the dashi sous vide and grilled catch of the day. From the binchotan grilled veggies and meats, to the perfectly fried tempura (they even accomodated a special gluten free tempura mix!). Even the finish - a delightful guava cake topped with local Lydgate Farms chocolate for dessert was superb. The whole meal was a perfect balance between dishes that highlighted the purity of its ingredients, and others that delivered the amazing flavours and umami Japanese cuisine is known for. Best of all, this may be the only restaurant on the island that relies almost entirely on locally sourced ingredients. Unbelievable as it sounds, most restaurants on Kauai source from Costco due to challenges of the small and fragmented farming community.

Please go here and support this restaurant if you are at all interested in food beyond consumption. It's not "cheap", but no fancy meal in Kauai is. This meal in Oahu/Maui or any other major city globally would easily fetch double the price. I would even say they are easily operating at the Michelin star level. If you are on vacation and forking out over $500+/night for a hotel, and wanted one fine dining splurge meal, you need to go here. Peter Merriman and Roy will be just fine...

This review is an experience shared out of disappointment, not malice, and a cautionary tale to any that might be considering making reservations to dine at Aina Kauai.

We made our reservation responsibly, weeks before our intended arrival. We in fact, even slightly tweaked our day/flight choices to accommodate Aina Kauai's somewhat limited weekly hours. We noted their 72 hour cancellation policy + $100 no-show penalty with no concern, because we had no intent of cancelling the high point of of Kauai dining plans.

Unfortunately Aina Kauai's plans didn't coincide with our own (or their own offered reservation times). They reached out to us by phone a mere 24 hours before our reservation to let us know they were cancelling the Sunday 7:30 PM seating for which we had reservations. Offers were extended for Sunday 5:00 PM (impossible to make relative to our arrival time) or at a Thursday seating (impossible to make relative to our departure time) - an attempt to their credit. In the interest of full disclosure: they reached out a few hours earlier (