Mushroom Toast ($12)
Stage Restaurant in the Honolulu Design Center serves innovative world-inspired food infused with local comfort themes. It’s a mixture that offers guests a familiar yet thoroughly modern culinary experience.
The space also includes Amuse Wine Bar, under the same ownership. This intriguing bar offers tasting of wines from across the world, cocktails, beer and more.
Exquisite cuisine at Stage is blanketed in a wonderfully whimsical environment. Michael Moore, the general manager, notes the restaurant provides customers with an intimate feeling of privacy in a relaxing, comfortable area. The eatery features airy spacing between tables, chairs with high-back seats and booths fronting the windows shaded by picturesque canopies.
One popular example of a dish that combines the eatery’s creative medley of international and Hawaii influences is the restaurant’s Duck ala Lilikoi, an ingenious variation on the classic French duck a l’orange.
Spanish-Inspired Steamed Clams ($14)
Stage Restaurant opened its doors in April 2007, and Moore shares that the chefs will celebrate the upcoming anniversary with some special items to mark the occasion.
Additionally, two new monthly programs have started in the space — Ar at Amuse on the second Tuesday of the month, and Bespoke at Amuse on the third Thursday, featuring wine, cocktails and spirits.
The restaurant is expertly helmed by executive chef Ron DeGuzman and pastry chef Cainan Sabey, who have each worked at the business for more than 10 years and received culinary training at Leeward Community College.
Asian Milk and Honey ($16)
One of DeGuzman’s creations is Mushroom Toast ($12). It is an appealing appetizer based on a classic French mushroom tart available at the restaurant and wine bar. Incorporating locally grown mushrooms, this perfectly balanced dish includes button, shiitake, Alii and king oyster mushrooms, which are sauteed and pan-roasted. The executive chef adds garlic and heavy cream to the mushrooms, and the magnificent mixture is served on a house-made French baguette. This elegantly plated dish is artfully drizzled with a balsamic reduction and herb oil for added flavor and color.
Another item available in the restaurant and bar is Spanish-Inspired Steamed Clams ($14). It consists of juicy, tender Manila clams that are steamed and combined with sake, butter, garlic, onions and tomatoes. This yummy dish also incorporates some smoked Spanish paprika and is garnished with ogo.
Meanwhile, the pastry chef has created a sweet treat called Asian Milk and Honey ($16). The creamy, palate-pleasing concoction in a bowl starts with Japanese cotton cheesecake and includes panna cotta flavored with sesame and kinako. Bits of diced apples are also mixed into the bowl, and everything is topped with honey caviar, matcha green apple sorbet and then garnished with an Okinawan sugar tuile — a thin, delicate wafer.
So, with tantalizing cuisine like this, guests of Stage Restaurant are sure to leave pleased and astounded by the chefs’ creations.
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