Stage Restaurant: Hot Design, Lukewarm Review
(Alex Salkever is the editor / founder of Hawaii travel blog Hawaiirama.)
Honolulu has enjoyed a spate of new restaurant openings in the past month and among the most anticipated is Stage, a team effort from alumni of the highly regarded Alan Wong's (home to the best Asian fusion food in the country, bar none). The new restaurant is set in a nifty design center / furniture store that's all black-and-white and high design oriented in a way that Honolulu has never really had. No tropical decor here.
Alas, in the first review I've read, from the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Chef Jon Matsubara perhaps gets a bit too distracted with the high art details of his food and goes a little bit too Wylie Dufresne / WD-50 for his own good. Escolar topped with Meyer lemon gelee cubes? Um, weird is fine, but maybe this one goes over our heads. At any rate, we'll see how the full review onslaught bears out for this one, but Stage appears to be still in dress rehearsal.
Related Stories:
· Stage set for promising future [Honolulu Star-Bulletin]
· Honolulu Restaurants: Stage Restaurant Makes Two [Hawaiirama]
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