What? You went to Hawai’i with an open mind, learned, and had great food experiences? Is this a lack of context? 
Lucky is any visitor who attends a real family lu’au.
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I’ll give you this – you are a great ambassador for the state.
That’s about all I have to offer.
You should contact the Michelin Guide. Their online experience is apparently out of date. Perhaps an errant apostrophe has caused their system to fritz out.
There are a couple dozen or more Michelin starred restaurants that are not in large cities.
Here’s one of our favorites. Modena’s population is less than 200K.
Three stars the last time I checked.
And of course, Yountville, CA (French Laundry) is far from a bustling metropolis (less than 4K population). Granted Napa Valley, but still a destination restaurant. People are willing to travel to eat there. Yountville is not Midtown Manhattan that’s for sure.
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I think you can find good food in any state, not sure about anywhere. That being said, I think there is a subtle different of finding great foods vs finding great diverse foods. Many places have good foods, but the scope of foods is narrow.
Interestingly there’s an article about Bourdain’s favorite places to eat in Hawaii in today’s SFGate.
Yes, there are a few dozen starred restaurants away from large cities. That is a pretty small number compared to the over two thousand around the world. Yountville is dinky, but it is less than an hour and a half from a big coastal city.
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So true, but now and then there is a wonderful surprise, like terrific Pakistani food in Perryton, Texas or outstanding Lebanese in Waco. The excellent rolls and fried pickles in Mauriceville were no surprise. I was in Robert Lee a few years ago, and the best I could find was a vending machine. I passed.
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That would be so awesome.
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It’s like taking SCUBA diving advice from somebody who lives in Nebraska. Sure, you can dive lakes but that’s about it.
It would take me a solid month to eat at the Pakistani restaurants in NYC and just the ones worth the time, excluding up-and-comers that are probably worth the time.
It’s about depth and breadth, and that’s the point I was trying to make with Kaleo. The background simply isn’t there because the depth and breadth isn’t there. Amazingly sure of himself, again, where it’s clearly a metaphysical impossibility to have really experienced very, very high-end cuisine on a regular basis FOR YEARS.
We all eat and we all have kitchens. Doesn’t make somebody an expert. I poop, too, but that doesn’t make me a gastroenterologist.
Living in the boonies, we had a couple of amazing restaurants up here. Unfortunately one moved way down the hill, and the other gave up due to too many Tahoe tourists treating his establishment like it was a highway rest stop. So sad.
Which one was that? ( if you don’t mind saying).
Oh I am well aware of the depth and diversity of your choices. I was on a job in Booker, where the only dinner options were hamburger or chicken fried steak, both very substandard. I went to Perryton to find a motel, and the food choices were not much better, but the owners of the motel were from Pakistan. They were very good cooks and very gracious about sharing. One of my biggest and best food surprises ever.
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Dante’s on the River (the old Alioto’s building in White Hall), run by Kevin and Nancy Cairns. They were welcoming hosts, and his food (ESPECIALLY the calamari steak) and her chocolates were incredible. You can see their menu at an archive of the website I designed/hosted for them.
But being located right on US 50, folks going to/from Tahoe used the five car parking lot to let their animals/children puke, and use their (small septic tank equipped) bathrooms without being customers. It got to the point where negative online reviews were posted by too many assholes that clashed with Kevin about this. Sheriffs would not respond to their calls regarding the trespassers… but would respond to complaints from trespassers about Kevin’s eventually aggressive behavior to evacuate them.
I had been there dozens of times (as had many of my neighbors) and their hospitality was always amazing, so my interpretation of the negative reviews was that they were all from the aforementioned assholes. He finally gave up and sold the place… so sad.
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I think I remember that place!
Josselin’s is a good example of a fantastic restaurant that in all likelihood won’t ever see a visitor from Michelin.
I’m lucky to be based in a city utterly steeped in all kinds of cuisine. It’s made me better at what I do. It keeps me sharp. I wore checks one day to the bodega in our neighborhood several years ago and ended up meeting, talking to, and becoming great friends with one of the most devastatingly accomplished home cooks I’ve ever met or will meet I’m sure. Missed her calling by not going pro. Took me around to a halal butcher I’d never heard of, and I’ve never done business anywhere else after that day for the product he carries. This is the kind of stuff I’m talking about. It’s everywhere. It never gets boring, there’s always something new going on. I love it. So, so lucky.
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I have that same little Oskar and I love it. Still chugging after nearly 40 years.
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Web address?
I’d love to see the menu. I think he was on an episode of Great Chefs. That was his springboard, or could have been.
Here’s how you get your first star: you make an “I don’t give a f*ck about making a living, I’m doing it right and doing it my way” menu. Any menu that reeks of just paying the bills won’t get a look. It’s cruel. I know. It takes financial backing, patrons, if not outright courtiers, to get the first star (despite what you may have read). There are occasional exceptions but they’re just that – exceptions. A French chef working in Hawaii can’t be cooking a “me-too” menu. It’s going to need to be wildly creative. Cooking product that more or less washes up on shore won’t get it.
Everybody gets that Hawaii is going to have fresh seafood. Cafeteria steam tables in Hawaii feature fresh seafood. How would islands in the middle of the Pacific have anything but? Outside the box is going to have to happen. Don’t shoot the messenger.
He might stand a better chance of a look, and ultimately a star, if he took seafood almost completely off the menu, or completely off, and featured something else entirely. Fresh catch, still twitching from being butchered, with a nice beurre blanc, might taste great but it is absolutely not star-worthy fare.
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No, Jean-Marie Josselin has been doing haute on Kaua’i since 1990. He’s a graduate of Lycee Hotelier de Paris. His original place in Kapa’a was called A Pacific Cafe, where he was nominated for 3 Beard awards.
See, https://tableagent.com/las-vegas/808/executive-chef/jean-marie-josselin/
Do you have a quick link to a menu or menus?
Bio looks like Ray wrote it – a lot of fluff about fusion.
On Kaua’i? Standard offerings include these.
There are always fresh fish specials. My favorite is opakapaka, a small orange snapper.
