What does my surprise at finding a superlative meal in Waikiki say about the most famous tourist area of Hawaii? Yes, that loud, colourful strip that flows south towards Diamond Head is jam-packed with all the top touristic textures. And that already says a lot. It’s the tourist area of one of the world’s most heavily visited regions.
That description alone is enough to make any serious gourmand run for the hills of San Sebastian and never look back.
It’s the Takeshita Street of Omotesando, the Times Square of New York City, the Chinese Theatre of Los Angeles, and the Darling Harbour of Sydney. There are a lot of people, decent sand, a healthy spread of high-rise hotels, and a lot of really disappointing, overpriced food.
There are giant open-air malls distinguished by Polynesian architecture and water/fire features, taking the classic American mall model and giving it a tropical sketch. You won’t have to run far to find all the major fast food chains vying for some of those precious tourist dollars to come flowing in.
There’s even a real sense of Vegas (or even Dubai) when you find out that almost everything is hidden in hotels and resorts, from Cirque du Soleil’s flash new purpose-built theatre at Outrigger Waikiki Beachcomber Hotel, to the Blue Note in the same brand’s sister property, Outrigger Waikiki Beach Resort.
Waikiki sits apart from the rest of Hawaii’s cinematic natural splendour as the archipelago’s ostensible tourist trap. It’s loud, often irritating, and the surface is so glossed up for the masses that it’s hard to reconcile this being your first impression of Hawaii with the rest of the islands.
And so when I happen to find one of the top three steaks of my life just off the main strip, I’m shocked. Shocked enough to still be surprised about it over a year later. And it was good enough that I could still taste the tingling sensation of pepper on my lips as I cut off a giant piece of koji-aged prime ribeye and forked it into my mouth. Perfectly cooked to medium rare, it shines with a heavy coat of shoyu-pepper glaze that gives it an unmistakable spice.
The steak currently sits on the menu at Umi by Vikram Garg, a worldly seafood-centric restaurant located on the ground floor of the immaculately clean Halepuna Waikiki. It’s one of the nicer, but smaller, hotels located off Kalakaua Avenue. And any other venues do not surround it, so it’s a peaceful space that feels appropriately cut off from the clutter.
Indian-born chef Vikram Garg was trained in French techniques and has been known to massage heavy accents of Japanese cuisine into his cooking. The man’s portfolio counts numerous James Beard-associated kitchens, and he has worked everywhere from New York and France to Iceland and North Carolina.
I shouldn’t be surprised at just how good this meal is, yet I still am. It’s a masterclass in texture and taste with interesting dishes like a palate-preparing kampachi with jicama, fennel and sishito vinaigrette preceding richer, more playful options like a complex popcorn soup with burnt butter and spiced lotus seeds.
I find it all too rare for a meal to get better as each course goes on. In almost all cases now, the appetisers and smaller dishes are the highlight of the meal, while the mains are purely functional and unexciting. Not the case here. After two very impressive soup courses, my table is blessed with a plump Ogo lobster poured with shellfish essence and spiced with togarashi pepper, sitting on slightly sticky, sweet emperor’s rice. Yum.
Yet, it’s the steak that has my heart. I rarely say that about steak, so I’m even more surprised by how much I enjoy the 16-oz prime cut.
“Restraint” is usually called out as one of the most important traits of a good chef. It’s easy to get indulgent with a piece of fine produce and sacrifice the density of natural flavours for your own pursuit of culinary perfection. Chefs without restraint typically end up messing everything up just so they can claim they’ve created something that’d never been attempted before.
Umi does clearly show restraint when dealing with top-shelf produce, but it seems Chef Garg knows when it’s needed and when it isn’t. The steak’s pepper glaze is nowhere near minimal, crowding the steak with a beautiful rolling spice that could be overwhelming for some. Yet it’s perfectly played here, teasing the limit of excess while still letting the full-flavoured meat do most of the work.
I think that’s why I can’t stop thinking about the steak in 2026, even though my visit was in 2024.
I can’t claim that UMI by Vikram Garg is the only good restaurant in Waikiki. But I also can’t claim otherwise. My limited experience with Hawaii doesn’t make me the best authority on its food scene, and I’ve only spent 4 whole days in Waikiki in my lifetime.
But given I had what is easily the worst Thai food I’ve had in my life the next day, at the top of one of those aforementioned shopping centres, and have only had average meals on the island elsewhere
UMI by Vikram Garg
Address: 2233 Helumoa Rd, Honolulu, HI 96815
Contact: +1 808-744-4244
The writer visited as a guest of Hawaii Tourism Authority and UMI by Vikram Garg.
