Meet the Willy Wonka of Chill, Neale Asato
Neale Asato made his name on humble, nostalgic sherbet. Now, he’s a James Beard Award semifinalist.
Photo: Aaron K. Yoshino
The day he became a semifinalist for the 2026 James Beard Award for Outstanding Pastry Chef, Neale Asato was prepping cubes of “Gummy Bear Jello.” He’d sorted the bears by color, melted them down with water and layered the reds, oranges, yellows and greens into a chewy, modern-day Rainbow Jell-O, with a dip of shredded lemon peel to up the puckery punch.
It was mid-January, opening week of Flavor Lab at Asatos Waikīkī, the three-course dessert omakase whose ideas he’d been experimenting with since the pandemic. Then Maui chef Sheldon Simeon texted. “I had no idea what he was congratulating me on,” Asato says. “I just felt in shock all day.”
Photo: Aaron K. Yoshino
If there exists a Willy Wonka of sweet and savory, of nostalgic local snacks mind-bended and morphed for palates of today, Asato is it. Before he created Flavor Lab and before the James Beard nomination, Asato’s sherbet was already a fixture around O‘ahu. Li hing vanilla float, lemon peel cola gummy, classic Green River, strawberry guri-guri—Asato Family sherbets elevated the simple old-school dessert to pop culture status.
Lines grew, first at Asato’s warehouse space in Hālawa, then at its pickup window near Downtown. For special events, there was Aloha Shoyu sherbet and Spam, eggs and rice ice cream. Pickled mango juice sherbet is still a fixture. Asato was blending a culinary background honed at Vintage Cave with the ingredients and flavors of his childhood.
Photo: Aaron K. Yoshino
“I wanted to push what sherbet could be, just be creative and do some new things. It’s a loose term, a frozen product with some dairy and between 1 and 9% fat,” he says. Flavor Lab “gives us a chance to create things that aren’t frozen.” Like the cola recipe he concocted, served with tinctures of ascorbic acid, 10% saline and simple syrup so you can adjust flavors as you like. Or his idea for kūlolo shave ice, or ways to use the boba machine, stone grinder and other equipment he’s collected.
Asato and eight other Hawai‘i chefs and eateries are among the roughly 500 nationwide named as James Beard Award semifinalists. Finalists will be announced March 31.
2424 Kalākaua Ave., Suite 113, Waikīkī, asatos.com, @asatoswaikiki
Mari Taketa is the dining editor of HONOLULU Magazine and editor of Frolic Hawai‘i.
