A Former Chef Recalls Her Time at The Chef’s Table at Hotel Wailea

I’m told we’ll have a table in the kitchen where the chef will prepare us a special meal.

What I don’t expect to find is an actual chef’s counter bolted to the end of the pass—the table on which cooks slide finished dishes to an “expediter,” who then sends them out into the dining room.

This year, The Restaurant at Hotel Wailea—a Relais & Châteaux adults-only luxury hotel—introduced two new dining experiences: The Chef’s Table and Chef’s Garden Table. Each offers an ever-evolving tasting menu featuring local ingredients and wine pairings from one of the largest cellars in Hawaiʻi. While the secluded garden table is perfect for romantic evenings, and might even be a good place to pop the “big question,” the kitchen table offers a front-row view of how the “back of the house” operates.

“We find inspiration all around us,” executive chef Ryan Cruz says as he describes the menu. “Sometimes we walk the property and see a tree of star fruit going crazy, so we grab some, then find green mangoes so we pickle them and use them as a component.”

Executive chef Ryan Cruz.
Photo: Sarah Burchard

The Restaurant at Hotel Wailea welcomed chef Cruz in March 2023. Born in the Philippines, Cruz moved  to Anaheim, California, when he was 3. An alum of Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Los Angeles, Cruz cut his teeth as a serious cook working for Wolfgang Puck in Beverly Hills and spent 10 more years cooking in London; New York City; Los Angeles; and Istanbul, where he met his wife, Jaila Cruz, The Restaurant at Hotel Wailea’s current pastry chef. From there, Cruz became a private chef for celebrity clients such as Oprah Winfrey. And then Hotel Wailea came calling.

Our meal begins predictably with sparkling wine and an elegant amuse-bouche, but when our server, Ian Delorme, sets down a bottle of Radikon Slatnik chardonnay blend, a low-intervention wine produced by a winemaker in Italy’s Friuli region, I know it’s going to be a fun dinner.

Hotel Wailea wine director Jeramiah Allen, who oversees a list of approximately 2,000 wines, says his focus on low-intervention wines is aligned with the spirit of The Restaurant’s cuisine. He says the wines are typically lower in alcohol and more brightly acidic, which makes them especially refreshing and food-friendly in Hawaiʻi’s tropical climate.

“These wines tend to express remarkable freshness and purity,” says Allen, “which allows the nuanced flavors from our kitchen—often driven by local produce, seafood, and herbs—to really shine without being overshadowed.”

The hamachi crudo tucked among grilled hōʻio ferns, slivered mango and pickled radish, bathed in coconut milk.
Photo: Sarah Burchard

As more food arrives, I watch the bustle in the kitchen and I realize how familiar everything is. This is the way we operated at the first restaurant I worked at when I was a line cook in 2001. There’s the lovable expediter who commands an entire kitchen the second the printer spits out an order. There’s the hand blender sitting in a metal bain-marie, ready to buzz sauces into a creamy froth before being meticulously poured from a pointed spoon onto a plate of rosy Snake River Farms beef wrapped in a deep mahogany crust. And there’s the freshly baked dinner rolls next to a sheet pan of dishes filled with soft butter sprinkled with sea salt. Chef Cruz sees us looking. “Want one?” he asks. “Sure!” my partner says before I can open my mouth. Cruz has already explained to us that we can taste anything we see in the kitchen, whether it’s on the menu or not. The off-menu dinner roll is crusty on the outside and soft in the middle, and the butter emanates fresh lavender from Aliʻi Kula Lavender farm on Maui.

And then it hits me: I see chef Cruz standing shoulder to shoulder standing with one his proteges Emma Pavlak as she plates our next course—shimmering hamachi crudo tucked among grilled hōʻio ferns, slivered mango and pickled radish, bathing in coconut milk separated by green dots of chive oil. The dish they are using is a clear glass balloon plate with a hollow interior; it’s been stuffed with succulents, herbs and leaves from the kitchen garden outside. As Cruz points to the ingredients, guiding Pavlak as she builds each masterpiece, I see my 19-year-old self being coached by my old chef de cuisine, a lifelong mentor who passed away last year.

Emma Pavlak in the kitchen.
Photo: Sarah Burchard

That gift of experience, passed from master to student, is priceless, and I revel in it as I watch my partner—also a chef—talk shop with Cruz. looks happy to meet a kindred spirit, and Cruz looks relieved that he can relax and be himself around two industry lifers.

After mopping up our entrees of seared rib-eye, Manchego-fingerling potato mash, braised cabbage-wrapped roasted carrots and bordelaise sauce—presented with hand-hammered Damascus steel steak knives, no less—chef Cruz checks in. “Want some more fingerling mash?” My partner belts out an assertive, “Yes, please!”

Cruz grabs a pan and fills it with creamy potatoes. “You like lobster?” he asks from the hot line, and then proceeds to chop up an entire lobster tail (again, off-menu) before adding it to the potatoes with a ladle full of buttery lobster nage.

In addition to getting to use luxury ingredients, Cruz says The Chef’s Table gives him and his team an opportunity to practice refined tableside manners. He trains his cooks on service etiquette, menu verbiage, proper hygiene, and how to present themselves professionally. And Pavlak’s learned well: As she moves from station to station plating our dishes, she pops over frequently to chat.

Seared rib-eye, Manchego-fingerling potato mash, braised cabbage-wrapped roasted carrots and bordelaise sauce.
Photo: Sarah Burchard

“I take a lot of pride in how our team can communicate and articulate what we’ve made and how we did it,” Cruz admits. “Overall, the goal is to bring our guests into our world [to] see how we plate, communicate, and how we structure service.”

On our way out, Delorme, our server,  presents us with a jar of honey from the hotel’s hives, as if our stay wasn’t sweet enough. We thank him for his exceptional service not the restaurant’s wine director, he is a certified sommelier with a vast knowledge of each wine presented. We also thank the kitchen team and chef Cruz for an evening we are sad to see end.

“The truth is that we all love what we do,” Cruz says. “We are always excited to share our world with anyone who wants to take a peek.”

Advanced reservations are required for The Chef’s Table and can be made here.

555 Kaukahi St., Wailea, hotelwailea.com/dining/the-restaurant.

Sarah Burchard is a longtime contributor to HAWAIʻI Magazine.