Foodflash: Nami Kaze Is Closing Next Month. Jason Peel Tells Us Why

Photo: Thomas Obungen

Nami Kaze announced its upcoming closure yesterday. The restaurant at Pier 38 lit up my world when it opened in 2022, and not just mine: Nearly the entire Frolic team named it their favorite new restaurant, it won the Hale ‘Aina Best New Restaurant award, and was twice recognized as a semifinalist for a James Beard Award. The place was always packed.

One of those James Beard nods was for co-owner Jason Peel as Best Chef: Northwest & Pacific. It was Peel who made the announcement on Instagram. He mentioned rising costs and operational challenges, but there was more, of course. Nami Kaze was the restaurant Peel dreamed up over decades of opening restaurants for others, most notably Roy Yamaguchi, and teaching culinary students at Kapi‘olani Community College.

SEE ALSO: Kampai at the Pier: Nami Kaze Is the Best New Restaurant of 2023

He and partners opened it first as an okazuya with carrot taegu and  ginger fried chicken inspired by Hanamaulu Café on Peel’s home island of Kaua‘i. Brunch followed, the menu rife with concoctions like honey walnut shrimp waffles and eggs Benedict whose toasted shrimp sandwich sticks you dipped in a cup of buttery poached eggs.

At night, Nami Kaze turned into a seafood- and veg-focused izakaya with ‘ulu tots in Peel’s grandfather’s barbecue sauce, roasted and cold-smoked tomatoes atop Mrs. Cheng’s soft tofu, and updates of the playful rolls Peel’s sushi counter was known for when he helmed the kitchen at Roy’s Waikīkī. True to his mission, local ingredients drove the menus.

Photo: Olivier Koning

In recent years, Nami Kaze launched an off-site okazuya and bakery, since closed. Brunch became a prix fixe, then that ended too.

We talked to Peel this afternoon as he prepped for a dinner event tonight. Here’s his story, edited minimally for brevity.

“We’re fine. It’s just I need to move on from all the relationships that amassed from these projects and do something a little more me-wise, something more focused. To get to this point, I cut a lot, and it’s just not the right fit anymore.

I know how tough the industry is. People just don’t want to work for it anymore. There’s a lot of good ones, don’t get me wrong, but there’s a lack of passion and loyalty and accountability. It’s been sad in that a lot of people have to miss out.

I gotta start thinking about myself and those who are closer to me and my family. I’m getting old, shit. Was hoping somebody could take over the line for me one day, like all the chefs I worked for.

I just turned 50 this year. Not old, but it’s time to just focus a little more.

Staffing’s part of it. Like I said, there’s a lot of good people, but because restaurants in general are so thin, there’s some good and some not so good. So for me, the lease was ending and the space was too big for what I feel like I can get. So we’re gonna move on and try to do something a little more fun.

We’re looking into a supper club. We’re not quite set on the name and the details. But I still want to do a lot of farm to table, showcase a lot of what Hawai‘i has, which I love, and showcase different forms of talent in Hawai‘i.

Nami Kaze was something I knew I had to do after teaching, I wanted to be a little bit more knowledgeable about owning a business and understanding what it takes to own a business. I didn’t feel I was competent in teaching students when I didn’t own my own restaurant. Can’t talk about passion when you’ve never done it for yourself.

It was pretty cool creating three different things—lunch, dinner and the bentos through COVID. Just knowing that with the right planning and organization, shit gets done. But the expansion into Okazuma hurt us. We didn’t have the right people in place, so we lost a bit there. It’s time to downsize, especially in this industry right now.

Honestly, what I want to focus on, because I see a lack, is giving more time to the high schools so we can get more people into the culinary programs. And going a little more in detail with the farms and understanding what it really takes for farmers to get food to the restaurant and how we can support the farmers a little more so that it supports the restaurants.

Because diners don’t understand how much it costs right now, between labor and goods and equipment, all the costs went up. You don’t think about the cost you have to pay for a repair guy to come and fix your stuff, it’s through the roof because they need to pay their bills too. Every single thing is higher in cost.

Right now, I think I need to step back, downsize and then rebuild.

We’ll start with the supper club, and we’ll go from there. I still want to cook. I love cooking. I love food obviously ‘cause I can’t lose weight. And I love people. So being able to still work with people and with food and hopefully do something for Hawai‘i in the process, as far as showcasing what we have in my own way, is really important to me.

We’re still trying to deal with the closure, trying to keep our standard and our staff until then. We were trying to close in September, but there were processes to take care of. Right now, the main thing is making sure the staff’s good. I’d love to squeeze in a special dinner or a closure dinner or something, but man, it’s nonstop with events. It’s crazy. Every day, we have something.

I was talking to one of my friends about it today, and I think the biggest thing I regret is trying to make it too easy and not holding some people accountable right away. If you win, you win, if you lose, you lose, it shouldn’t be like you get a trophy for showing up. It’s still losing. For people to just not care and not want to grow and become better and support Hawai‘i where they live and take it for granted, just to go on their phone and hide and not give a shit. If I wasn’t good at something, I’d practice it over and over and over. Now, people take that participation award and quit too easily, they take that participation award and they’re happy.

It has to start somewhere. I’ve seen the industry declining for a while. Before, you could pick and choose, and the worst had to get better just so they could join the team. Now, we’re just hiring bodies. It’s just not right. I want to start over and get that strong foundation. If we can do more, we’ll do more, if we can’t, we can’t. I’m not trying to hire people that don’t want to do their best for Hawai‘i and their families.

I love my journey. I wouldn’t trade it for the world. Could I have made better decisions? Done things differently? For sure. But I wouldn’t change it. I’m proud of it. I’m gonna keep trying to do what I do.”

1135 N Nimitz Highway, Iwilei, namikaze.com, @namikazehawaii

Mari Taketa is editor of Frolic Hawai‘i and dining editor of HONOLULU Magazine.