10.31The Four Seasons Hualalai | “Inside the Kitchen”
Four Seasons has a reputation for great food, so it’s no surprise to find rising culinary chefs creating fabulous dishes at the Four Seasons Resort Hualalai. Executive Sous Chef Nick boasts that Chef Angela is one of those rising stars. Check out her Grilled Beef Caprese Saladand her Hawaiian inspired Lobster Lillikoi Salad recipes. They are healthy, quick to prepare and delicious.
The Blue Baker and I, along with my youngest daughter, had the privilege of doing an “inside the kitchen” tour with Chef Angela this summer. Since the Blue Baker is now 11 years old, she had a few things she wanted to try during our hands on cooking lesson.
First, we watched Chef Angela demonstrate how to make the pasta dough for the Beach Tree Restaurant that evening. Of course, all the dough is prepared in house with that special 00 flour that Chef Nick flies in from Italy.
Then it was time to decide what type of pasta to roll out for the evening, while the fresh pasta sauce cooked in an enormous pot on the stove.
The process of running the dough through the pasta maker takes a lot longer than I thought. Over and over the dough is put through a press like apparatus until it is rolled super thin. Only then is it actually cut, portion controlled and placed on a tray ready for evening diners.
Next, we made pizza from scratch. Then we tried to “throw” the dough into something that resembled the shape of a pizza. Chef Angela was clearly more successful than my two girls at this!
Finally, Chef Angela demonstrated how to dip the vanilla bon bons into liquid chocolate. I know what you’re thinking; you’d love to just eat some of that warm chocolate. Well, rest assured, we did just that and it was delicious!
The chocolate bon bons are now one of our family’s favorite desserts. The presentation was on dry ice and we ate until we could eat no more.
We loved how friendly everyone was. Each person worked quickly, but always with a smile and a friendly greeting.
That’s Chef Will, Garde Manager at the Resort, saying good bye to us. A big thanks to Chef Angela and her crew for a great “Inside the Kitchen” tour of the Beach Tree restaurant.
-The Gourmet Review
November 5th, 2011 at 8:27 am
It’ s the best. Heading back tomorrow and can’t wait. What was your favorite restaurant?
November 2nd, 2011 at 7:42 am
Thanks for such a great article. We just stayed at the Four Seasons Hualalai two weeks ago! We met Chef Nick and Chef Angela the first night we stayed at that amazing resort. We were treated like royalty. Chef Nick treated us to the most incredible paella entree which he credited to his Grandmother and Chef Angela’s “little pillows of heaven” gnocchi in an oxtail reduction was light and delectable. The best gnocchi we’ve ever had! She later was gracious enough to give us a private cooking class which featured the techniques of her gnocchi rolling. That class with Chef Angela paid for the whole trip in my eyes. I can now make my own “little pillows of heaven”. Chef Nick is exactly correct when he asserts that Chef Angela is a rising star in the culinary world and I predict it wont be long before she’s shinning as brightly as some of the best.