What Jason Peel Is Bringing to Diamond Head Market & Grill
The former chef-owner of Nami Kaze is rolling out ambitious projects at the longtime neighborhood eatery.
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story, written as details of a new omakase dinner were being planned, gave the number of courses as 12. The omakase will have 11 courses.
After he closed Nami Kaze last fall, Jason Peel’s intended break—to rest, regroup and reconnect with family and friends—didn’t last long. Within days, the chef and restaurateur resurfaced across town at Kelvin Ro’s Diamond Head Market & Grill, bringing Scott and Shaun Motoda from his core team at Nami Kaze.
Fluffy omelets, roast pork hash, ‘ahi and eggs: Peel’s first task was to bring back a popular breakfast service. While it’s only on weekends for now, breakfast is the first item on a menu of projects Peel is tackling. Two new dishes starting April 4 will be the first to showcase his creative style: a waffle topped with Mrs Cheng’s Tofu and eggplant drizzled with a buttery sweet-sour sauce, plus a Mountain View pork kim chee meatloaf loco moco. “It’s huge. It’s a bakery, it’s a market and a grill. And we’re adding on two, three other projects to it,” he says. “We’re trying to make sure it’s sustainable for a long time.”
What else is coming? An 11-course omakase dinner starts on the market’s rooftop on April 11, Peel says, themed entirely around rice. “I’m using koji for things, rice crackers, rice in different forms. I’m doing an orange custard with calamansi kakigori and a cold amazake my wife is making on top, and I want to serve it with slow-roasted sweet potatoes I’m gonna caramelize,” he says.
“Another dish I’m playing around with is a foie gras torchon with okoshi. We’ll add ‘ahi and longan. Am I gonna do it as a nigiri or as a little okoshi brick?”
The omakase dinners will run on weekends with two seatings of about 14 people each night, Peel says. Catering is also in the works. Then there’s the farm—5 acres in East O‘ahu that Ro began leasing about four years ago. Peel will help develop its crops, farm tours and other programs, especially educational ones for students.
Diamond Head Market & Grill, launched by Ro in 2002, brought a bistro sensibility to plate lunch and grab and go. His blueberry cream cheese scones, kalbi and balsamic-tinged portobello sandwiches are still bestsellers today.
A generation later, Peel’s Nami Kaze rose to national fame as a modern local izakaya that celebrated Hawai‘i farms and food producers. Soon, Peel says, the style he built at Nami Kaze will start to appear on the slopes of Diamond Head. “I’m coming into their house. I want to take my shoes off and be polite. At the same time, I have my own ideas that I want to share,” he says. “I like our potential.”
3158 Monsarrat Ave., Kapahulu, (808) 732-0077, diamondheadmarket.com, @diamondheadmarketandgrill
Mari Taketa is the dining editor of HONOLULU Magazine and editor of Frolic Hawai‘i.
