Over the past decade, brand-name chefs who have gone global with their food, conquering new cities like culinary Alexanders, have been scrutinized—is it really possible to run an empire and retain the quality and innovation that made the name in the first place? Alain Ducasse, Nobu Matsuhisa, Gordon Ramsay, and, closer to home, Roy Yamaguchi, are some of the kitchen stars who have turned into meteor showers.
Michi Harris was the highlight of family parties. From a “poke bar” to a fragrant beef rendang that rivals Indigo’s, her contribution always trumped the inevitable baking pan of sushi rice on the potluck table. I know—she’s my cousin. She also catered events for the family business, Harris Agency, cooking for 200-plus people at a shot.
“A girlfriend told me you should do this as a business,” says Harris. “And my sister said to me, ‘You just love to feed people don’t you?’ I realized I do love to cook. I cook all day now, and I still love it.”
Last year Harris turned her innate talent—she’s self-taught—into a business and launched Michi’s Cooking Fresh for You, a prepared-meal service. Now she’s making dinner for about 60 people twice a week.
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 As you can see from the links, modest inns have been replaced by luxe spa-sporting mini EuroDisneys.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.
