French-Japanese Influence in Honolulu, by Chris Kajioka

The older I get, the more I’m inspired by Japan. I'm Japanese and I've been traveling there now off and on for about eight years, pretty religiously.


I always think that the only time that you really grow is when you're uncomfortable.


I hire on attitude. And that's pretty much it. We can teach people the basics, we can teach them skills. You can't teach a good attitude.


The way we print our menu is very vague. Normally we just state a protein and a few flavor profiles. It doesn't lock us into a specific ingredient necessarily. If a farmer grows only so much, then that's what we'll use, and then we'll change it. That flexibility is really what has made the restaurant a little bit more dynamic.


If you don't start with good ingredients, no matter what you do to it, it's not going to work out.


This generation wants instant gratification. They want to work in five different places in five years, and then open their own restaurant when they're 26. You're building a resume, but you're not really becoming a good cook.