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About
Chef and restaurateur known for being one of the founders of Hawaiʻi Regional Cuisine, a movement that transformed modern Hawaiian food by focusing on locally grown ingredients and the islands' multicultural flavors. He is also known for having appeared on TV as a guest judge on Bravo's Top Chef along with making national headlines in 2009 when he cooked a traditional Hawaiian luau at the White House for President Barack Obama.
Before fame
He discovered his passion for cooking at an early age. He studied culinary arts at Kapiʻolani Community College in Honolulu before traveling to the mainland for classical training. He completed an apprenticeship at The Greenbrier in West Virginia and then trained at the Lutèce in New York City under chef André Soltner. He returned to Hawaiʻi in 1989 and opened The Canoe House at the Mauna Lani Bay Hotel. He joined 11 other chefs to form the Hawaiʻi Regional Cuisine movement in 1991. He opened Alan Wong's Restaurant in 1995 which operated until 2020. He opened The Pineapple Room by Alan Wong in 1999.
Trivia
He won a James Beard Award in 1996. He published his cookbook The Blue Tomato in 2010, which won the Ka Palapala Poʻokela Award in 2011 and an International Association of Culinary Professionals Cookbook Award in 2012. He was inducted into the American Academy of Chefs Culinary Hall of Fame in 2013.
Family life
He was born and raised in Wahiawā, Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi.
Associated with
He and Sam Choy are both alumni of Kapiʻolani Community College's Culinary Arts program and part of the Hawaiʻi Regional Cuisine movement.
