[ FOOD ]
All-star chefs to
prepare food
for benefit
If you were to plot a graph listing "chefs/famous" and "chefs/Japanese," at the intersection you'd find these names: Nobu Matsuhisa, with his international chain of restaurants and movie-star status; Tetsuya Wakuda of the acclaimed Tetsuya's in Sydney, Australia; and Hawaii's Roy Yamaguchi.
All three will appear at a fund-raising event Feb. 22 event at Kapiolani Community College -- and they're just the headline acts on a roster packed with culinary hotshots.
Roy's benefit
With 23 chefs including Nobu Matsuhisa, Tetsuya Wakuda and Roy YamaguchiWhen: Feb. 22
Place: Kapiolani Community College courtyard
Cost: $100 for "grazing" tickets or $5,000 for corporate tables of 10, to benefit the Thomas and Warren Matsuda Scholarship Fund
Call: 396-7697
Nearly two-dozen chefs will man the food stations, including Alessandro Stratta of Renoir in Las Vegas, Lee Hefter of Spago in Beverly Hills and Rick Tramonto of Tru in Chicago, all familiar to sophisticated foodies. Host chef Yamaguchi calls it a collection unprecedented for Hawaii.
The event is meant to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the opening of the first Roy's restaurant -- in Hawaii Kai in 1988. But the real reason, Yamaguchi says, is to memorialize a father and son killed in tragedies just two years apart.
Warren Matsuda, a runner at Roy's Hawaii Kai, died in a fall from a Makapuu cliff during a fishing outing in 2002. His father, Thomas, was stabbed to death in December 2000 while at work as executive sous chef at the Sheraton Waikiki. One of Matsuda's cooks was convicted of second-degree murder in the killing.
Yamaguchi said he has let many anniversaries pass unmarked, but the 15th merited a major event. "I think the No. 1 reason is we felt that we had to do something to memorialize Warren and his father. ... We had to remember them and celebrate their lives in a big way."
Profits will go toward establishing the Thomas and Warren Matsuda Scholarship Fund for community college culinary students. Yamaguchi says he hopes to raise $100,000.
Yamaguchi speaks with respect of Thomas Matsuda, although he didn't know him well, but when it comes to Warren, he has no shortage of praise. "All of us, even myself, we want to be like him. He was just a great person."
STAR-BULLETIN / 2002
Old friends Roy Yamaguchi, left, and Nobu Matsuhisa cook together at a dinner at Roy's Hawaii Kai.
The selection of guest chefs, Yamaguchi says, was meant to provide a varied menu of cuisines, but he also focused on "craftsmanship," seeking out chefs who demonstrate passion and a solid work ethic. "Just like Warren did."
The chef lineup also includes Ron Siegel of Masa's, San Francisco; Rafih Benjelloun, Imperial Fez, Atlanta; Floyd Cardoz of Tabla, New York; Richard Sandoval of Maya, New York, and Tamayo, Colorado; Yuji Wakiya of Turandot, Tokyo; Stephan Pyles of Star Canyon, Dallas; and Tony Liu, a former Roy's chef and friend of Warren Matsuda who now assists Mario Batali at Babbo in New York. "Tony was a Roy's cast member," Yamaguchi says. "He was in our theater. He was in our production. He's big time now."
Yamaguchi also included his two favorite Hawaii chefs, Alan Wong and Hiroshi Fukui of L'Uraku, and invited back to Hawaii eight Roy's chefs who have gone on to other restaurants in the chain: Gordon Hopkins (corporate executive chef), David Abella (La Jolla), Chris Garnier (Newport Beach), John Sikhattana (San Francisco), Greg Richie (Orlando), Rand Packer (Tampa), Chris Falconer (Las Vegas/Summerlin) and Bill Trevino (Austin).
The cuisines will run from contemporary French and Italian to Mexican, Indian, Moroccan, Southwestern and Asian.
Figuring out which dishes to eat is likely to be the evening's challenge, but Yamaguchi says there's a simple solution: "Everybody's going to eat everything. It's as simple as that."
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