Best Bites: Café Kaila Is The Undisputed Breakfast and Brunch Queen

(Partner Content) From cornbread waffles and stuffed French toasts to Benedicts and loco mocos, we try Kaila’s Best Bites.

This year, Café Kaila celebrates 15 years of churning out pancakes, waffles and many, many eggs prepared your way. Glancing up at the shelves behind the bar, you’ll find plenty of Hale ‘Aina Award plaques for breakfast and brunch, making Chrissie Kaila Castillo the undisputed queen. Café Kaila is a fixture at our annual BrunchFest event, where attendees go wild for the restaurant’s signature, not-so-sweet cornbread waffles with strawberry butter and honey.

Then there’s the towering blueberry stuffed French toast, which doubles the “wow” factor on any French toast in town. Swing over to the savory side with the comforting meatloaf loco moco, or keep it light with the smoked salmon Benedict. Both are winners on their own, but they’re even better shared.

But there’s one dish that we’re not letting go of: the Moloka‘i purple sweet potato waffle. This airy waffle, made from scratch with local sweet potatoes, is pretty, purple and supports the Alzheimer’s Association Hawai‘i with each purchase. Now that’s the Best Bite.

Open daily from 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., 2919 Kapi‘olani Blvd, Kaimukī, (808) 732-3330, cafe-kaila-hawaii.com, @cafekaila