Hiroyuki Sakai, catapulted to international fame via the Japanese-based Fuji-TV show "Iron Chef," will open his first U.S. restaurant at the DFS Galleria in Waikiki.
Sakai, 69, will be in Waikiki on Wednesday to announce the new venture.
"Sakai of Hawaii" will be a cafe-style restaurant, according to a news release Monday.
Sakai has been planning a restaurant in Hawaii since at least 2003. In an interview that year in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin Opens in a new tab, Sakai said his Hawaii restaurant would be cafe-style and would be open from lunch to about 2 a.m., with a menu including light entrees, salads and desserts, comprising French and Japanese flavors.
On TV he was known as "Iron Chef French," for his classic French training and his upscale La Rochelle restaurants Opens in a new tab in Japan —the type in which one set menu is offered nightly.
"I have authentic, full-service French restaurants in Japan," Sakai said through an interpreter during his 2003 visit to Honolulu. In the United States, "I would rather have a casual restaurant, where anybody can stop by."
The plan at the time was for the cafe to be small, with seating for about 20 customers.
Details of his current plans will be unveiled at a Wednesday news conference.
In 2003, Dallas-based investors were encouraging Sakai to open his first restaurant outside Japan somewhere on the mainland. Sakai told the Star-Bulletin Opens in a new tab that even if he opened a mainland restaurant, he would want to open one in Hawaii as well.
"I love Hawaii very, very much," he said. "More than any city in the U.S."
The opening of a celebrity chef restaurant, or upscale restaurant of any kind, "does a number of things" for Hawaii, said Roger Morey, executive director of the Hawaii Restaurant Association, a nonprofit trade group.
"That a company would invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in Waikiki at this time in our economic situation, it shows that the company, those people, have confidence that we’re coming back. It invigorates everything," Morey said.
"When you have that excitement building, cooking on the stove, it’s good for the industry."
Chef Sakai USA LLC was incorporated in Hawaii in April of last year, and it registered trade names including Sakai of Hawaii and Provence.
Sakai himself is not listed as an officer in Chef Sakai USA LLC. Rather, two companies, Honolulu-based Pink Diamond Inc. and Woodcrest Group LLC, of unknown origin, are listed as the owners.
