Nobu Lana'i — Restaurant in Lānaʻi

WARNING: DO NOT TRUST FOUR SEASONS/NOBU!!

Here’s the full story - I have been dating my girlfriend for about a year, and I wanted to celebrate her birthday with her in a special way for our first time together. Her favorite restaurant is Nobu. We also had picked out a few travel destinations, and Hawaii was on that list. Perfect. Let’s go to the one in Lana’i. I made the reservation at Nobu and called to confirm it was good before even booking the tickets to Hawaii (we live in California). I even called the restaurant a week before our flight took off to confirm our reservation was good. We were “all set”.

Lana’i is a nice island, but certainly unless you’re going to the Four Seasons (and I’m not operating on that budget), it probably doesn’t make sense to stay for more than a day. We stayed there three nights with the belief that our Nobu reservation was on a Friday night, and then we’d leave on the ferry the next morning to go Maui. Upon arrival in Lana’i, our shuttle driver informed us that only people staying at the Four Seasons were permitted on their grounds (and since Nobu is on Four Seasons turf, no one could go there).

We called now for the THIRD TIME to confirm, and the day before our dinner, they said they would be canceling our reservation. The reason was for the past 3-4 weeks, they had changed their policy to only have Four Seasons guests on campus. That’s fine, but why didn’t anyone tell me in advance? We could have made other accommodations, and certainly staying in Lana’i for 3 nights would have been the principal one of them. Given enough advance notice, we may have chosen a different travel destination completely.

With only a day in advance of the first birthday of hers we were sharing together, my girlfriend and I were now limited to about 4 restaurants in downtown Lana’i (most of which were already at capacity for the night). I asked what they could do to correct their error. They had no idea. I then followed up with them asking for a dinner at Nobu to be taken care of by Four Seasons. They countered by offering a bottle of champagne, and then later offering a dinner at the Four Seasons (no alcohol). Both of those I refused, because again, my girlfriend was looking to go to Nobu, NOT the Four Seasons. I have followed up multiple times with multiple people and have not received a response for weeks. Just flat out ignored. So much for their famous “customer service”.

TLDR: Booked a trip to Lana’i just to go to Nobu and they canceled our reservation the day before our dinner. Girlfriend’s birthday was effectively ruined. Do not trust them, they will not honor your reservations nor try to rectify...

Having been to multiple Nobus, this was the most disappointing in terms of food quality.

If you are staying at four seasons, I would recommend One Forty more if you are simply looking for better food preparation and are not hung on Japanese cooking.

The menu was missing the wagyu gyoza and takumi wagyu slider as their chef who prepares that wasn't here for past few months (if that's the case, I recommend removing the dishes from the menu so as to not disappoint customers).

We ordered the mushroom soup - which was basically mushrooms in hot water (try the one at One Forty instead, which is creamier and tastier)

The sushi was mixed - we liked the scallops, and the Uni but the Otoro tasted not fresh, and the fat content was more of a Chu-toro.

The best part of the menu was the A5 miyazaki wagyu - that was more the ingredient than the chef skills so hard to rate the restaurant on this.

Overall, it was an underwhelming experience compared to the Nobu in Malibu, or any high end sushi restaurant or Japanese restaurant in the Hawaiian islands.

We decided to end our meal early and eat upstairs instead since there was nothing...

Nobu is of course an iconic brand, and I’m a big fan of their flagship restaurants.

What you get here is a familiar experience with classic dishes like their black miso cod. The chefs have been well trained and make the classics just as you’d expect them. That’s tough to do in such a remote environment, so bravo.

Hats off to a varied wine menu with some nice value picks. Not all $1000 wines!

So why four stars? Three things.

First, the cocktail menu is pretty poor. At least four Aperol drinks… very summer 2023! And the preparation was average. Skip it and go down the steps to the pool bar which has amazing cocktails.

Second, I’m a big believer that a restaurant like this should draw from its own heritage as well as local. There is some attempt with the “now” section but almost no use of local fish and produce. That’s a travesty.

Third, the “now” dishes were a bit hit and miss. The fried rice cakes with tuna tartare was epic, but the ahi wasabi salsa was massively over seasoned with wasabi and inedible.

But I don’t wish to be too critical. It’s a very...