(Grand) Mother of Invention
“I consider myself a fisherman first and a chef second,” says Dean & DeLuca Hawaii executive chef Kevin Carvalho. “I grew up hunting and fishing on the Big Island, my dad loved to hunt and fish, I remember in high school coming home with friends and our yard would be filled with fish drying on racks.” More than a decade later, these experiences and memories continue to shape Carvalho’s ideas about sustainability. Buying locally grown and raised products from suppliers, yes, but Carvalho is most excited about sharing his skills and passion as a fisherman and forager with his team in the kitchen. “You respect the food and don’t waste— you use every part of the animal,” says Carvalho. To showcase his point, the Chef shares a slice of “prosciutto” made from the bloodlines of a fish he caught and butchered with his kitchen staff. The taste is delicate, lightly salty, and like the best Italian prosciutto, melts in your mouth. Pretty amazing.
The skills it took to develop the cured fish “prosciutto” didn’t come easily for Carvalho. At age 18, just out of high school, separated from his family, he spent several years surfing and living in his car at Ka‘ena Point, not sure about his future. But when his great-grandmother, an excellent cook died he felt a calling to the kitchen. “Like many families we didn’t always get along and would fight, but my great-grandmother, she was the one who brought us together. When she cooked we would get together—we didn’t get along, but we didn’t fight when she cooked,” recalls Carvalho. When his great-grandmother died, Carvalho enrolled in the culinary program at the University of Hawai‘i, Leeward Community College, working nights at McDonald’s to pay his tuition. In culinary school, he would do book reports on George Mavrothalassitis, chef and founder of the legendary, award-winning Chef Mavro restaurant in Honolulu. Completing the program in 2007, Carvalho asked the French chef to hire him. No luck. For several months he would wait in the parking lot of the restaurant (by now he had the chef’s schedule down) hoping for a break. His break came when a dishwasher quit. Working his way up from dishwasher to chef de partie in three years. Head down, absorbing, honing his skills and technique, it was a good time to be in the kitchen at Chef Mavro. The line cooks were Andrew Le of Pig and the Lady, Mark Noguchi from Pili Group and Punahou School, and in Mavro’s executive chef, Kevin Chong, Carvalho found a mentor and teacher who beyond culinary skills taught him about managing with kindness and respect. He remembers his first turn making the family meal for the restaurant staff and it being terrible and how embarrassed he was, but Chong did not humiliate him. Chong remembers Carvalho as giving “110 percent,” being incredibly focused and taking a lot of pride in his work. “Focused, eager to learn and humble are how I would describe Kevin, says Chong who is now living in Orlando and the executive chef of two Disney resorts.
After leaving Chef Mavro, Carvalho continued refining his culinary skills working sous chef positions for the Mina Group and Alohilani Resort. But perhaps it was his great-grandmother calling to him again when in 2019, Dean & DeLuca Hawaii president Yohei Takahashi asked him to join their Hawai‘i team as executive chef for its Royal Hawaiian Center and The Ritz-Carlton locations. The Ritz-Carlton location is down the street from where his great-grandmother was born and raised in Waikiki.
Maybe the great-grandmother who first influenced him to get in the kitchen is watching out for his career. The synergy between Takahashi and Carvalho is producing stellar experiences. The two are simpatico in their approach to food—refined and elevated, yet humble, with an emphasis on curating handcrafted local products and dining. The Artisan Loft restaurant above the Ritz-Carlton market is an oasis of calm in Waikiki—quiet and understated, serving exquisite food that manages to reflect Hawai‘i in a nuanced way, that’s honest, instead of trendy. Takahashi allows Carvalho time to forage and hunt for products that end up on the menu—ferns from Hawai‘i Island, now cultivated in a secret location on O‘ahu, ‘opihi and freshly caught fish, are often harvested by the Chef and his kitchen crew and served in a restaurant steps from his great-grandmother’s home. Maybe grandma is looking out for all Dean & DeLuca Hawaii diners.
deandeluca-hawaii.com