Ekolu Kitchen 1279

Ekolu Kitchen 1279 knocks it out of the park with their menu! Chef Geno Sarmiento does it again highlighting his finely crafted creative dishes with a balance of excellent flavors. This new South Maui restaurant opened its doors 3 months ago and already has a dedicated following. Chef Geno’s amazing dishes will satisfy any palate.

The restaurant is very inviting and includes a bar featuring Kombuchas, beer, specialty crafted cocktails and a full bar. The indoor dining area has well placed tables and air conditioning or you can dine outdoors where one can enjoy the Maui breezes. Their open kitchen showcases a pizza oven.

We visited Ekolu Kitchen the other night and ordered a number of their options. We started off with an order of their Moroccan Lamb Kebab accompanied with Shishito peppers, sumac roasted heirloom cherry tomatoes, goat cheese tzatziki & chimichurri. It was excellent and we completely forgot to take a photo!

We ordered their exotic Street Corn Flatbread prepared fresh from their in-house pizza oven. The toppings include Fire roasted street corn, garlic-cilantro creme fraiche, cotija cheese, yuzu parmesan aioli, pickled jalapeño and tajin. This was probably my favorite pizza that I have had in a long time. We also ordered Couscous Panzo-nella an excellent salad with a plethora of ingredients; beets, watermelon radish, Brussels sprouts, sweet corn, heirloom cherry tomatoes, kale, red wine chipotle vinaigrette and garnished with an herb crostinini and Pauwela sunflower sprouts.

For the entrées we ordered the Aqua Pazza, a captivatingly delicious dish featuring Pacific rock snapper, fresh Manila clams, seafood saffron tomato brodo, celery root and potato puree, 24 hour tomatoes, Kalamata olives and capers. It was excellent and I highly recommend it. For the finale we had the excellent Shrimp Scampi and Raviolis featuring Kabocha pumpkin marscapone raviolis, scampi style white tiger shrimp with baby shiitake and Hamakua Farm Ali’i mushroom mix with lilikoi brown butter, crispy sage and toasted pepitas. Also quite delicious!