The Best Places in Waikiki

1. AAA Five Diamonds
2. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
2. AAA Five Diamonds

1. AAA Four Diamonds

Three separate dining rooms, three separate reservations to even consider: teppanyaki, sushi omakase, or traditional washoku, each run as its own operation. The spirits company behind the whisky built an elegant Japanese restaurant in Waikīkī that takes itself seriously without making you feel like you wandered in underdressed. The drink menu is, predictably, excellent. Pick your room before you call.

1. Eater The 38 Essential Honolulu Restaurants
2. Honolulu Magazine Crab, Cream Cheese and Tomato · The Best Things We Ate in Hawai‘i
3. Eater The 20 Best Restaurants in Waikīkī, Hawaiʻi

The Coco Puffs in the bakery case are cream puffs frosted on top, not cereal, and locals have been devoted to them for generations. This outpost of a Honolulu institution sits in a bright, open-air space at the top of International Market Place, which feels a little glossy for a diner that trades in pancakes, Denver omelets, and mochi donuts. The food is the same as the original, which is exactly the point.

1. Honolulu Magazine Restaurateur of the Year · Hale ‘Aina Awards · Peter Kim
2. Eater The 20 Best Restaurants in Waikīkī, Hawaiʻi

1. James Beard Awards 2022 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Chef · Keiji Nakazawa
2. The 50 The 50 Discovery
3. Eater The 20 Best Restaurants in Waikīkī, Hawaiʻi

1. Sunset Happening Hawaiian · Where to Eat and Drink

1. James Beard Awards 2026 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Restaurateur · Peter Merriman

1. Eater The 38 Essential Honolulu Restaurants
2. Eater The 20 Best Restaurants in Waikīkī, Hawaiʻi

1. Honolulu Magazine Best New Restaurant · Hale ‘Aina Awards
2. Honolulu Magazine Best Restaurants in Honolulu

1. James Beard Awards 2024 · Semifinalist · Best Chef: Northwest and Pacific · Nae Ogawa

A Cuban-inspired brunch spot on the second floor in Waikiki where the Cubano and choripan keep locals coming back despite the tourist foot traffic below. The chef leans hard on local sourcing, which is rarer here than you'd think, so the fruit plate runs on farmers market tropicals instead of the usual imported berries flown in from somewhere cold. Sandwiches and braised brisket do the heavy lifting on a menu that reads like it belongs somewhere else entirely.

1. Eater The 20 Best Restaurants in Waikīkī, Hawaiʻi

1. Eater The 20 Best Restaurants in Waikīkī, Hawaiʻi

The bar stools here are swings, which tells you everything about the mood. Heyday is a neighborhood restaurant and bar tucked into the courtyard of a midcentury hotel in Waikiki, leaning hard into the retro-tropical bit with mai tai variations and boozy slushies alongside cheesy toast and a fried mahi sandwich that reads as a Filet-o-Fish with ambitions. After dark, the Green Lady Cocktail Room in room eight opens as a dark lounge spilling into a palm-fringed courtyard.

1. The Infatuation The Best Bars In Honolulu
2. Eater The 20 Best Restaurants in Waikīkī, Hawaiʻi

Sit-down wine bar and all-day cafe in the Royal Hawaiian Center, where the menu wanders happily from breakfast plates to burrata to garlic shrimp without apologizing for any of it. The move many regulars make is the fried breadfruit, served with brown sugar and coconut cream in a way that makes you wonder why breakfast potatoes ever went another direction. Steamed clams and acai bowls from the adjacent cafe round out the options nicely.

1. Eater The 20 Best Restaurants in Waikīkī, Hawaiʻi

1. Eater The 20 Best Restaurants in Waikīkī, Hawaiʻi

1. Eater The 20 Best Restaurants in Waikīkī, Hawaiʻi

1. Eater The 20 Best Restaurants in Waikīkī, Hawaiʻi

A grab-and-go musubi counter inside the Aqua Pacific Monarch Hotel, with the largest menu of the three Waikīkī locations. Fresh rice gets packed around fried chicken, salmon with roe, or any number of Spam variations, including one loaded with avocado, bacon, and egg that operates as a breakfast sandwich in musubi form. The space is small, the turnover is fast, and the whole operation runs on the principle that rice pressed around a good filling is a complete argument.

1. Eater The 20 Best Restaurants in Waikīkī, Hawaiʻi

1. Eater The 20 Best Restaurants in Waikīkī, Hawaiʻi

1. Eater The 20 Best Restaurants in Waikīkī, Hawaiʻi

1. Eater The 20 Best Restaurants in Waikīkī, Hawaiʻi

The original 1930s wooden beams, plastered over for decades while the building housed a scooter-rental shop, are visible again here. Zigu is a modern izakaya tucked into the ground floor, running a menu of small plates, tempura, and sushi with local touches woven through: mochiko fried chicken, kale noodles, green papaya rolls. Waikiki usually does loud and obvious; this room does quiet and considered.

1. Eater The 20 Best Restaurants in Waikīkī, Hawaiʻi

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1. Honolulu Magazine 2024 · Best Way to Drink Your Nutrients: Blue Dream · Best of Honolulu

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