Hale ‘Aina Voters Declare Cino the Best New Restaurant of 2024
Readers say Cino is molto bene. We agree.
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On a recent weeknight at Cino, a table of fancy 40-something ladies raised their glasses and toasted their own good judgment for being out at this hour—it was 9 p.m.—in such a grownup place. Cino, they said, was “super cute with good vibes.” A week earlier, the mayor was there for dinner, because what better place to shake hands and air-kiss cheeks in an election year than at a super cute spot with good vibes?
Cino is this year’s readers’ choice Hale ‘Aina Award winner for Best New Restaurant. The Italian chophouse, owned by DB Restaurant Group—which also owns Café Duck Butt, DB Grill and Mad Bene—opened last fall on the ground floor of ‘A‘ali‘i Tower on Queen Street. Helmed by executive chef Arnold Corpuz, who was born and raised on O‘ahu and has led Las Vegas restaurant kitchens for many years, Cino checks just about every box on a bon vivant’s list. Service? Good. Ambience? Good. And the food? The food is really, really good.
First, if you don’t order the dry-aged pork chop, you ordered wrong. In a master class of restraint, the chop shows up mostly naked: a pristine piece of meat, soft-seared to a shade darker than golden, on a white plate with only an apple reduction sauce under it and a shower of flaky sea salt over the top.
The first time I saw it, I knew this was either going to be perfect or a complete letdown.
Every slice of the chop—the most distal, the one closest to the bone, the unctuous center slices clinging to the thickest part of the fat cap—is fantastic. This is pork at its best, tender and crisp with ultra-concentrated porky flavor and a slightly funky, dry-age finish. And while pairing it with apples may seem predictable at a place where an entrée costs $38 to $115 (with no sides; these are separate), this isn’t your auntie’s Sunday supper pork.
The amber-hued apple reduction is clear and thin. No gloopiness, no pulpy applesauce bits. Just pure apple, its sweetness tempered by Amaro Averna, an Italian bitter digestif. The chop could stand alone, but to miss out on that sauce would be a shame. After the pork is gone, some sauce remains, which obviously (obviously!) means that it was intended to be sopped up by Cino’s signature twice-baked potato. Which we come back and do again the next week because we can’t stop thinking about the pork chop.
Like pork and apples, twice-baked potatoes are one of those side dishes that seem better suited for a festive family table. At Cino, Corpuz has transformed it into something between traditional chophouse loaded mashed potatoes and French pomme aligot. He fills a roasted potato skin with his sumptuous take on cheesy mashed potatoes, billows of potato purée that look like a downy drift of toasted marshmallow.
As an American-Italian chophouse and crudo bar, Cino has many of the offerings one would expect: lots of meat, raw seafood, à la carte side dishes that are rich and filling. You’d imagine a hushed place with dim light, dark wood, dusty red wine and a walk-in humidor in a back room.
Instead, Cino is shimmery and loud and a little extra. Electronic dance music plays in the background. Pinks and lush greens are splashed throughout, the booths upholstered in blush pink florals and the bar gilded in brass and gold. There’s tiger art and black-and-white zigzag floor tiles, jungle wallpaper and teal velvet barstools. It looks like what a swanky Ho Chi Minh City restaurant would look like if Vietnam had been colonized by the Italians instead of the French.
Like its design, the menu is a more playful take on the chophouse. For all its culinary technique and attention to detail, Cino doesn’t mind being a bit unruly. The big-eye tuna shoyu ceviche comes framed by an ornate wasabi tuile that tastes like a Chinese pretzel. It’s pretty. Incredibly delicate. And the server tells you to crack it with your spoon and mash it in with the raw fish. It feels rebellious.
The steak tartare is chunky and savory and mostly traditional, but instead of the customary egg yolk center, Corpuz dollops on an egg yolk emulsion, which evokes steak sandwich with mayo vibes. The whole branzino is butterflied and grilled, the spoon-tender flesh and crisp skin giving it an ethereal bite, while the smoke and char flavors make it homey and comforting.
Panna cotta, a dessert so frequently unremarkable that we order it only because someone else at the table wins the argument, is probably the best we’ve ever had. The intense flavor of today’s mango pudding layered on a silky coconut base, all of it topped with fresh strawberry brunoise, was something we never saw coming.
And the tiramisu: Rather than a square dusted with cocoa powder, Corpuz enrobes a slim stack of ladyfingers and mascarpone in a chocolate shell that’s studded with coffee grounds. Where traditional tiramisu is all soft and soaked, Corpuz’s is soft and crisp, sweet and bitter. It’s like tiramisu and a Häagen-Dazs bar fell in love over a cup of espresso.
Perhaps his time in Las Vegas instilled in Corpuz a fondness for, and mastery of, both class and glitz. It’s a chic-bling balance that Honoluluans are thrilled to embrace.
987 Queen St., (808) 888-3008, cinohawaii.com, @cinohawaii
