A hotel with more than one restaurant and bar can be a veritable playground for a dedicated mixologist. That’s what Tuda Sarian found when she became Director of Mixology at Halekulani, one of Hawaii’s top-rated hotels, nestled into a quiet corner of Waikiki. During the COVID pandemic, Halekulani chose to shut down entirely, allowing it to make renovations and upgrades, including adding a new bar. That resulted in Sarian having a slate full of opportunities when asked to create new cocktail menus for not just one but all of Halekulani’s restaurants.
“I am often asked how I develop concepts for menus and think up new drinks,” Sarian says. “Generally, I like to take inspiration for menu development from a sense of place. The identities of our outlets, restaurants, and bars are so special in the community, but also unique to each other, that they are abundantly inspiring. All to say that for these menus, the environment comes first, and it shapes the world for the beverage experience we strive to curate for our guests.”
Here’s Sarian’s overview of what’s new, cocktail-wise, at Halekulani, along with her beverage recommendations.
The restaurant’s outdoor patio is absolutely the best place in Waikiki to watch the sunset. You’ll also find the pool bar, Earl’s, here, a great place to kick back with an afternoon cocktail. The cocktail menu “was intended to be colorful and fun and pay homage to a certain era of cocktails — the ‘golden age of travel to Hawai’i.'” The signature Mai Tai is a must. And I couldn’t resist the Coconut Cake Martini, inspired by Halekulani’s to-die-for coconut cake (also a must-try). Sarian also recommends the Pulehu Pineapple (Blue Kuleana Nanea Rum, charred pineapple syrup, salted honey, lemon, pineapple-lemon sea salt foam). “‘Pulehu’ means ‘roast over hot embers.’ It’s vibrant blue, sweet, and lemony sour. Savory from the grilled pineapple, but light and refreshing.”
This “casually elegant” restaurant offers superb oceanfront views and is renowned for its popular Sunday brunch (reservations highly recommended). The food menu focuses on Mediterranean cuisine, so the cocktail menu “drew a lot of inspiration from the wonderful array of Italian ingredients — bitter amari, fresh fruit — while keeping the palate of the modern drinker in mind. Nothing too bitter, nothing too sweet, and always food friendly.” It’s the perfect setting to sample something a bit bubbly, such as the Frizzante Melone (prosecco, strawberry-infused Campari, honeydew shrub, soda, Frizzante melon). “This is a fruity and slightly bitter ‘spritz’ style beverage, served in a red wine glass over ice and garnished with melon spheres and a white orchid. The melon spheres, which may taste fizzy, are gassed with CO2 and frozen.”
As you might expect, this sophisticated jazz club has a menu reflecting that genre. “For Lewers Lounge, I deep-dove into my records of not-so-standard jazz music to make not-so-‘standard’ cocktails with jazz age beverage trends. The Lewers Lounge menu fits this concept down to the drink names which read like a compilation album.” So consider taking a spin with That Was My Heart (Tanqueray gin, Carpano Antica vermouth, strawberry-infused Campari, house-made strawberry syrup, Ko Hana Kokoleka Chocolate Rum Essence, strawberry Campari fruit leather). “The inspiration for this was a Negroni, but with a romantic ‘strawberries and chocolate’ twist. After we infuse our Campari with strawberries, the fruit is strained out and repurposed into a strawberry Campari vegan fruit leather. It maximizes the strawberry component, resulting in a delicious sweet-and-bitter candy garnish.”
And now we come to the pièce de resistance, Halekulani’s Forbes 5-Star and AAA Five Diamond award-winning restaurant that offers a sumptuous dining experience; there’s also a cozy adjoining bar, L’Aperitif. The restaurant’s theme is neo-classic French cuisine. Accordingly, “La Mer’s menu development for L’Aperitif had me spending a lot of time thinking of French spirits, sherries, cognacs, and culinary techniques. These beverages were created to be elegant in flavor and appearance, as is the standard for which La Mer is famous.”
Indeed. Among these classy cocktails, you’ll find the exquisite Rêve de Tahiti (vanilla butter fat washed High West rye, white peach tea almond syrup, Seville Orange bitters, Cherry wood smoke), inspired by executive chef Alexandre Trancher’s vanilla butter lobster dish. “I took that concept, used a vegan butter infused with vanilla, and fat-washed a high-proof rye; I knew I wanted to make an Old Fashioned. I used rye because the Old-Fashioned is great for having a solid whisky backbone without the sweetness of the corn. I used high-proof rye because I know vanilla can appear to the palate as sweet, so I wanted to cut through that with a respectable amount of alcohol presence. The peach tea and almond syrup was, again, an imagined flavor combination I thought would suit it well after tasting the whiskey. It is light and nutty, floral, fruity, and has a mellow sweetness that would complement the vanilla butter rye. Initially, this drink wasn’t meant to be smoked, but after tasting it, smoke addressed the question of ‘what is it missing?’ The smoke cut that perceived ‘sweetness’ on the nose from the vanilla and added layers to the cocktail.”
I had one last question for Ms. Sarian. While sipping a Smoke Rings cocktail (essentially a smokey old-fashioned) at Lewers Lounge, I was amazed by its large ice cube that never melted. How was that possible? “I’m a really big nerd about ice,” Sarian confesses. “I’ve worked in places in New York where I had to cut my own ice. Fortunately, we don’t have to do that here because we have really great companies that do that. We started buying clear cubes; clear ice is dense and freezes in such a way that it cuts off anything that has impurities or bubbles that make it melt faster. So when you have just the clear, dense block of ice, it can chill your drink without over-diluting it by melting into it. So it preserves your cocktail better.”
“So all of those details, I think, are really important. If you’re going to present a cocktail that you’ve put hours of thought into, and the prep and all of the things that our bar team puts into on the back end, when it gets to the guest, it shouldn’t be degraded by quickly melting Ice cube.”
It’s this attention to detail that makes Halekulani a must-visit for cocktail lovers — whichever restaurant you choose.
Halekulani: “On the Beach at Waikiki”
PHOTO GALLERY (All images courtesy of the brand)
Tuda Sarian, Director of Mixology at Halekulani
Pulehu Pineapple
Lewars’ ‘That Was My Heart’
Reve-de-Tahiti
Frizzante-Melone
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