Will Kaua‘i Grill make the Garden Isle Hawaii’s dining destination?

In France, there is a tradition of the restaurant-inn. Michelin-starred chefs are sprinkled throughout the boonies, where the food grows, and include accommodations, so people can make a pilgrimage, eat and sleep off the food coma. Like the five-star Georges Blanc complex in Vonnas or the three-star Le Relais Bernard Loiseau in Saulieu (which thrives despite Loiseau’s 2003 suicide, under the chef’s protégé Patrick Bertron). As you can see from the links, modest inns have been replaced by luxe spa-sporting mini EuroDisneys.

With the opening of Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s Kaua‘i Grill on Nov. 19 at the reborn St Regis Princeville Resort on Kaua‘i—with Vongerichten in attendance—Hawai‘i may be getting its own version of this dine-and-doze experience.

No fruit left behind

Two years ago, April Lee and Chetan Mangat were living in Honolulu and two experiences led them to create their new online produce exchange GoGlean.org. One night they saw Agnès Varda’s film The Gleaners and I (a look at harvesting—as former agrarian duty and modern urban survival). It also happened to be mango season. They saw the irony of $2 Costa Rican mangoes being sold in a town where yardfuls of fruit were rotting.

In other news

Another special $59 dinner from Chef Mavro: The Julie & Julia dinner was such a hit that the restaurant will do similar special menus periodically. Next up: Beaujolais Nouveau menu, Nov 19-Dec 5, 2009, 6-9:30 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday. Call 944-4714. Chef George Mavrothalassitis and Chef de Cuisine Kevin Chong came up with a three-course menu to go with the 2009 Beaujolais Nouveau, which is being hailed as one of the best harvests in 50 years.