Polynesian-style cuisine meets new American bistro-style cuisine and pan-Asian dishes in today’s top restaurants and eateries on Maui. During your Hawaii cruise, you’ll have a chance to sample some of the island’s finest and freshest seafood, beef, noodles, and even some of the world’s best shave ice, served at a variety of restaurants and locations — some coming complete with old-time Hawaiian atmosphere, some featuring memorable water views, and some just offering incredible food.
Here are our top five picks for places to eat in Maui during your Hawaii cruise, chosen for food, atmosphere, and authenticity:
gourmet meal
Mama’s Fish House, at 799 Poho Place, Paia, claims the title of Maui’s first fresh fish restaurant. Founded in 1973 by a family that had sailed the South Pacific, Mama’s has the requisite setting – along a white sand beach flanked by coconut palms on Maui’s North Shore – and the food to match. While the menu changes frequently according to what’s freshest, you ‘ll find items like grilled mahimahi with wild boar, octopus, and ahi poke – a traditional Hawaiian meal – as well as wild-caught ono sautéed with mushrooms in garlic butter and white wine, or monchong, mahimahi and ahi sautéed in curry and coconut milk. Some meat dishes are served as well and desserts all have Polynesian flavors, such as a Lilikoi chocolate mousse in a pastry shell and tropical fruit sorbets. Mama’s prices reflect the quality of the ingredients and preparations – wild-caught fish dishes are in the $40-$50 range – but the meals and setting are memorable. Arrive in time to watch the sunset.
Triple Berry Pie
The Lahaina Grill at 127 Lahainaluna Road in lively and historic Lahaina also serves up excellent Hawaiian-style seafood but branches out into other delights of New American and eclectic fusion cuisine as well. You can choose among items such as seared ahi with foie gras, sautéed mahi-mahi with local kula spinach, Wagyu beef ravioli, homemade meatballs and an array of inventive soups and salads. The Lahaina Grill is also known for its extensive wine list and knockout desserts: It’s hard to go wrong with the triple berry pie or the kula lime tart. Prices run somewhat less than at Mama’s Fish House, though entrées still cost around $30-$45. But, considering that the Lahaina Grill has won the Honolulu Magazine readers’ poll for top Maui restaurant 21 years in a row, you’re not likely to go away disappointed.
Don’t let the name fool you: the Hali’imaile General Store at 900 Haliimaile Road in the shadow of Haleakala in Upcountry Maui is an award-winning full-service restaurant. While invoking the atmosphere of Old Hawaii, celebrity chef Bev Gannon offers up Hawaiian regional fare such as crab pizza, miso marinated walu with wasabi mashed potatoes, macadamia nut crusted mahimahi with tropical fruit salsa, and paniolo ribs with citrus barbecue sauce and Asian slaw. Now celebrating its 25th anniversary, the Hali’imaile General Store has prices comparable to the Lahaina Grill.
As you might imagine, the stars at Star Noodle in Lahaina (286 Kupuohi Street) are the fresh hand-made Asian noodles. A project of executive chef Sheldon Simeon, Star Noodle is the place to go for pan-Asian and Hawaiian dishes like Hapa ramen with roast pork and poached egg, udon with radish and scallions, Lahaina fried soup (fat chow fun with ground pork), and Singapore noodles. You can also get items such as pohole salad (Hana fiddlehead fern with Maui onion), a Vietnamese crepe, charbroiled miso salmon, and, for dessert, mango pudding. Most prices are in the $7-$12 range, very reasonable for Hawaii, making this a great lunch spot. But you can also get a variety of sakes and specialty cocktails here, making it inviting for dinner as well.
Shaved Ice
Who says great dining has to involve full meals? In Hawaii, one of the top “gourmet” items is shave ice, the wonderful flavored ice concoctions that put mainland snow cones to shame (shave ice, introduced to Hawaii by Japanese plantation workers, has been likened by a local writer to “snow drenched in fruity delicious sweetness”). And the best shave ice in Maui can be found at the four locations of Ululani’s Hawaiian Shave Ice – two on Front Street in Lahaina, one in Kahului and one on Kihei. Ululani’s offers up a wide variety of flavors – from almond and guava to pickled mango and wet lemon peel – which can be combined to form multi-flavors like guava, mango and passion orange or cherry, banana and blue raspberry. On a hot tropical day on Maui, nothing beats a shave ice for refreshment.
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