When you hear the words “Auberge” and “summer restaurant residency,” you might imagine a fancy, over-the-top experience. But in go-with-the-flow Hawaii, the waves—and everything else—hit differently.
From now through September 1 at Auberge Resort Collection’s Mauna Lani on the Big Island’s Kohala Coast, guests can go to the hotel’s outdoor Surf Shack, order food and sake from free-spirited Los Angeles izakaya Ototo’s trailer and eat dishes like sesame-seed-topped chicken wings and rock shrimp okonomiyaki at oceanfront picnic tables. The summer residency is open for dinner and beachside drinking seven nights a week.
Ototo, owned by chef Charles Namba and beverage director Courtney Kaplan, won a James Beard Award for its extensive sake program in 2023. Kaplan is eager to make the connections between sake and surfing during her Hawaii residency. And obviously, the connections between Hawaii and Japan are manifold. (The Mauna Lani resort was owned by Tokyo Corporation before it became an Auberge property.)
“There’s a brewery in Japan called Tensei,” Kaplan tells Observer on Friday, June 6, during Ototo’s grand-opening weekend at Mauna Lani. “They’re right on the coast. They’re very close to Shonan Beach. And the master brewer loves two things: surfing and fermentation. He makes surf sakes that are really inspired by ocean culture and are meant to pair with all the seafood they’re eating.”
Kaplan says that these sakes from master brewer Tetsuro Igarashi are “fresh and breezy” but have “depth and complexity,” which is also a good way to describe Ototo and what it’s doing in Hawaii.
Namba is serving many of the banger dishes that have been at Ototo since it opened in Echo Park six years ago. There’s his beloved potato salad with pickled mustard greens, kurobuta sausage and a jammy egg. There’s the hiyashi chuka, an umami-laden cold ramen that gets brightness from avocado, tomato and daikon sprouts. There’s a crowd-pleasing fish sando (which, like many fish sandos, is a nod to McDonald’s).
And there’s a chili burger that really shows the chef’s sense of whimsy and his awareness of how food evolves. In Los Angeles, the chili burger is known as the Ode to MOS Burger. At Mauna Lani, it’s been renamed the Aloha to MOS Burger. MOS Burger is a popular Japanese chain that was born out of founder Satoshi Sakurada’s love of the chili burgers at Tommy’s in Los Angeles. So Namba decided to make an L.A. burger inspired by a Japanese burger that was inspired by an L.A. burger.
“I think doing the dishes at Ototo just fits in perfectly with Hawaii and the Japanese kind of Hawaiian culture, and I think it’s going to do very well,” Namba tells Observer.
The funny thing is, Namba is a Los Angeles native who never visited Hawaii until Mauna Lani got in touch. He’s just rolling with the waves this summer. He and Kaplan say they don’t really know how this deal happened or how the resort even found out about Ototo. Namba doesn’t know what will happen after the residency ends. But he and Kaplan are here now, and they’re happy to hang loose and not think about origin stories or future activations.
“We’re feeling the Hawaiian vibes,” Kaplan says. “I think people are starting to notice and pay attention to the diversity and creativity in Los Angeles. I think a lot of chefs who are making their mark on the broader food scene are really incorporating this feeling of L.A. into all different kinds of cuisines.”
And L.A. chefs are getting invited all over the world. Anajak Thai’s Justin Pichetrungsi just had his James Beard Award-winning food re-created by Noma staff at Copenhagen’s MAD Symposium. Michelin-starred Camphor’s Max Boonthanakit has had pop-ups in Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. Wynn Las Vegas will soon announce that L.A. chefs, including Ms. Chi’s Shirley Chung and Slab’s Burt Bakman, will be part of its Revelry food festival during the week of the North America’s 50 Best Restaurants launch in September.
These Los Angeles chefs all serve different kinds of food, and are known for creating something that is distinctly L.A. That’s in line with Ototo, which, as Namba points out, has dozens of sakes by the glass and weaves together Italian and French influences in its izakaya food. “I think that’s very interesting to everywhere around America and the world,” Namba says.
In Hawaii, he’s keeping the core of his menu while using local daikon, cucumbers, watercress and tomatoes. Kaplan is pairing every dish with sake at the Surf Shack.
Ototo’s trailer opens at 5 p.m. every day. By 5:05 p.m. on Saturday, guests were enjoying cold ramen and mini cucumbers with chili crunch. Families came by in their beach clothes, ready for surf-and-turf in the form of fish sandos and burgers. Sunset sake should be a lot of fun here this summer.
