Chef Mavro’s Autumn Menu Gives New and Returning Diners a Lot to Look Forward To

The menu, which debuted in late September, highlights the chef’s forest-to-table vision.

October 1, 2018

Katrina Valcourt,

ONAGA PROVENÇALE

PHOTO: Katrina Valcourt

For many, Chef Mavro is a special-occasion restaurant, reserved for anniversaries, birthdays or romantic evenings. So diners might not realize the restaurant, which celebrates 20 years this year, is constantly changing it up throughout the years, experimenting with new trends, techniques and ingredients. “My favorite ingredient is always the one I’m going to find tomorrow,” says chef George Mavrothalassitis.

What distinguishes Chef Mavro’s latest menu, and perhaps the restaurant as a whole, is its focus on forest-to-table. Rather than have farms grow specifically for a dish, as was the case with Hawai‘i Regional Cuisine and the farm-to-table movement, Mavrothalassitis says he’s currently more interested in ingredients that are already available locally, such as ‘ulu, warabi, soursop and jackfruit, and figuring out how to use them in new, intriguing ways.

Chef Mavro launched its new autumn menu (Mavrothalassitis prefers “autumn” to “fall” because it’s more romantic) on Sept. 25. “I used to change the menu religiously every season on the 21st or 22nd, and change everything at once,” Mavrothalassitis says. But now, with the availability of some ingredients year-round, “I remove them because I’m tired!” Some of the new dishes have already been on the menu for a few weeks, since sometimes the kitchen gets a new ingredient in the middle of the season, “and we get very excited and we start.”

The restaurant currently offers three menus: a set four-course anniversary menu with some of Chef Mavro’s favorite and most popular dishes over the past 20 years (including the salt-crusted onaga); a five-course seasonal menu where diners can choose each course except dessert; and a seasonal nine-course grand tasting menu (you can get a vegetarian version of this, as well). We tried four of the dishes available on the five- and nine-course menus, as well as the seared foie gras (nine-course only) and the lavender and honey dessert (five-course only).

SEARED FOIE GRAS

Photo: Katrina Valcourt

We started with the foie gras, glazed with sherry vinegar and served on a buttery slice of brioche. The “forest” element here is pickled jackfruit, which adds a nice acidity to the dish. Everything at Chef Mavro is enhanced and transformed by wine pairings, and the Selbach-Oster riesling, with tropical fruit notes, somehow complements both the foie gras and the jackfruit perfectly.

Next we tried the onaga Provençale, a firm day-boat catch steamed and served with fennel, tomato, zucchini, lemon, capers and Pernod, an anise-flavored liqueur. The tomatoes reminded me of pasta sauce and I wished there were more than two on the plate. The fennel, which I’m more familiar with as a dried seed packed with flavor, is much more subtle in this preparation, with the Pernod and lemon the strongest flavors we picked out. The 2017 Domaines Elie Sumeire Côtes de Provence rosé was my least favorite of the pairings, as it tasted a little sterile on its own, though it mellowed after a few bites.