By Ken Ige, Star-Bulletin
Jeremiah Tower's Seviche is spiced with fresh chiles.
A Star Is Born
Jeremiah Tower, the father of
By Catherine Kekoa Enomoto
California cuisine, launches plans for
Stars Restaurant Honolulu
Star-BulletinTwenty-six years ago Jeremiah Tower was en route from Harvard to Hawaii to become an architect when he ran out of money and found a cooking job at a small Berkeley restaurant called Chez Panisse. Several restaurants, thousands of gourmet repasts and national acclaim as the "father of California cuisine" later, Tower is completing that 1971 journey to Hawaii.
Tower is chef/owner of the celebrated Stars Restaurant in San Francisco and was named James Beard Foundation 1996 chef of the year.
He plans to open a Stars Restaurant Honolulu next summer -- and in the meantime, he'll be a guest chef at the third anniversary dinner of Kahala Moon Cafe on Monday.
"This is a big, high-powered chef," Kahala Moon chef/restaurateur Kelvin Ro said of Tower. "He is a great inspiration for me. After 12 James Beard award nominations, he finally won one -- and he won over the whole country."
The 54-year-old Tower spoke by phone with the Star-Bulletin last week right after preparing a private Stars luncheon of lobster ravioli in lobster sauce; prawns with risotto; fresh cranberry beans, fava beans, white corn and chiles with grilled capon breast; and chocolate boxes filled with seasonal berries.
"I'm self-taught. I've learned on the job basically," he said. "We started a whole style of sort of casual elegance, instead of formal elegance," he said about his original collaboration with the "mother of California cuisine," Alice Waters of Chez Panisse.
It was there that Tower combined American cookery -- overlaid with Spanish and Chinese influences -- with fresh local ingredients from small farms, special suppliers and cottage industries. Voila! California cuisine.
Jeremiah Tower's Seviche
is spiced with fresh chiles.
By Ken Ige,
Star-BulletinOn a larger scale, Tower sees the trend in American cuisine as a shift toward the basics of individual expertise and exquisite produce, seafoods and meats.
"I can only talk in terms of the way food is going in the United States," he said. "And that's definitely getting more serious and concentrating on skill and using wonderful ingredients, and not so much focusing on weirdness, the exotic, scarcity and expense; but more on consolidating everyone's (own) individual styles."
Tower is working on bringing his gastronomic genius to the islands. Ro has been introducing Tower to local vendors and to island foods and cultures.
For example, Monday's six-course anniversary dinner culminates in a dessert of white peaches stuffed with white pineapple, nectarine carpaccio and pakalana, pikake and blackberry sauces. Other courses feature grilled Szechuan peppered rack of lamb with sunchokes, heirloom tomatoes and squash blossoms; softshell-crab summer rolls; petits fours; accompanying wines; plus Tiffany & Co. favors.
Golden Harvest is bank-rolling the Stars Honolulu venture. The Chinese movie giant -- which has licensing agreements with Tower and opened a Stars Restaurant Singapore late last year -- is negotiating for the Hawaii site.
Towers' architectural know-how "makes it much easier to design," he said of the isle restaurant. "We just finished the preliminary drawings. I am very excited. We did that in one day. It's in an old building. We haven't done the interior yet -- the furniture and fixtures -- but the overall scheme is very exciting.
"We certainly intend to do a new style of cuisine -- California style, but using Hawaiian ingredients. So, it's bound to come out as sort of a new style," said Tower, who was born in Stamford, Conn., and raised in England and Australia. He attended Harvard, where he majored in English and French literature, and earned a master's degree in architecture. He grew up traveling and experiencing the world's finest restaurants, hotels, ships -- and foods.
"I knew how things should taste. It was a big advantage. I have a good taste memory," he said.
The world traveler anticipates his Hawaii venture.
"I am really excited because I get to play with a whole new set of ingredients. I always wanted to live in Hawaii; you never know.
"My long-term goal is to have a house on Diamond Head," he said, testing the taste of the words.
The Moon and Stars
Event: Third-anniversary six-course wine dinner
Recipes
