A restaurant and culinary school that is actually neither, but both… and it’s a store, as well!If you have ever come home from an amazing restaurant meal thinking of nothing but the ingredients and the recipes, Cucina Bella has just launched a series of events for you.
“Maui’s kitchenware store,” as Cucina Bella calls itself, hosted the first installment in its Celebrity Chef Program on Thursday, April 10, with Chef de Cuisine Jojo Vasquez and Pastry Chef Ashlie Koehler from The Ritz-Carlton, Kapalua’s Banyan Tree restaurant. The event was sold out, and 30 people had the pleasure of watching and talking to Chefs Jojo and Ashlie and eating their food.
The next evening of the Celebrity Chef Program will feature Sam Choy on May 8, starting at 6:30. Call now for reservations because there will still be only 30 seats, and I suspect a lot of the people who were there April 10 have already bought tickets for event No. 2.
Chef Jojo was fun, and the food he cooked was simple. It was a bit of a surprise to find all the recipes, with very adequate instructions, in the welcome package at every seat. “I have too many ideas,” was his explanation of giving away recipes in his restaurants and at Cucina Bella. He’s already moving on to new ideas.
The first course was a composed salad of goat cheese, lavender-infused strawberries and hydroponic watercress with a champagne vinaigrette. “I work with the best items in Kula from all the farms,” Jojo said. What was probably new to most in this course was the idea of macerating the berries with lavender.
Students from Maui Culinary Academy at Maui Community College helped with the plating and service of this and all the courses to the “students.” Their service was excellent—nearly silent—and greatly appreciated.
Second course was miso-Manila clams. In this easy recipe, there were many culinary ideas that were probably both interesting and novel for many in the room—the value of using grapeseed oil, how to properly prepare lemongrass and how not to cook miso among them.
The entrée was a filet of Kona kampachi with spinach, enoki mushrooms, mango purée and a lime vinaigrette, garnished with scallions. This recipe sounded complex, but was very simple to prepare. Surely, the simplicity was the best news for those who were there to learn. In fact, I later made a nearly identical version of the recipe, going from cut filet to plated entrée in less than 15 minutes, having made the purée and vinaigrette earlier.
Chef Ashlie assisted Chef Jojo throughout, then took center stage in the Cucina Bella “Kitchen Theater” to make us a dessert of apple cider beignets with dulce de leche gelato. There was definitely nothing simple about this dessert, and it’s a safe bet that if someone from the class gets irresistibly hungry for it—and we will—the answer will be a trip to the Ritz Carlton. The best and bravest cooks with the space and equipment may try it at home.
There were some issues in this first event. Things went slowly and ran long, which affected both food and mood. But the Cucina Bella staff saw the problems and promised to solve them right away. Proof of their commitment can be found in the fact that they changed the start time for Sam Choy from 7:30 to 6:30 p.m., even though that will require them to close the store early.
Also, it was hard to see what was happening sometimes, which may be costly to correct. Events like this tend to be huge, but Cucina Bella is doing them on an intimate scale, allowing for meaningful interactions. Celebrity chefs often demonstrate complex recipes and elaborate presentations, but it looks like this series is going to be largely about ingredients we can buy and processes we can do with utensils most of us own.
If I am free and can muster the $85 ticket price, I know I’ll be back for some future Kitchen Theater events. Oh, in case you don’t know where Cucina Bella is, maybe this will help: It’s kind of in the parking lot of Wal-Mart.