Matt Raso had barely gotten from Honolulu to Miami when the chance came to return to the islands, this time to the Kohala Coast.

Last year Raso left his position as executive chef at Nobu Waikiki to take over Nobu Miami. He’d been there little more than a month when Sanjiv Hulugalle, general manager of the Mauna Lani resort and an acquaintance from Raso’s Honolulu days, asked him to consider taking the helm at the Mauna Lani’s flagship restaurant, the storied CanoeHouse.

Raso gave Miami a few more months, but once he’d visited the Mauna Lani, “I could hear the waves crashing and the wind blowing and I thought, ‘This is where I want to be.’”

So last month, he was back in Hawaii.

His kitchen isn’t quite ready for him yet, though.

“We’re estranged at the moment,” Raso says. The entire resort is undergoing renovation as the first Auberge Resorts Collection property in Hawaii.

He’s working on his new menu, though, with a theme of preservation.

“That means all sorts of things: The preservation of the culture, preservation of the history, preservation of people’s stories.”

As a practical matter, he also aims to make good use of preservation techniques, canning fruit, pickling vegetables, drying meats, and to operate with as little waste as possible.

A technique from Nobu is one he plans to incorporate at CanoeHouse, blending vegetable scraps into a paste to use as a cure for beef, fish and chicken.

“It really adds a huge umami flavor,” Raso said, “a really super-intensive flavor.”

The Mauna Lani is expected to reopen in January, with four dining outlets besides the fine-dining CanoeHouse — the casual HaLani, poolside Ha Bar, a deli called The Market and Surf Shack on the beach.