Three chefs with Hilo ties are among 13 people statewide named semifinalists for the 2022 James Beard Foundation Awards — deemed “the Oscars of the food world” by Time magazine.
Mark Pomaski, chef/owner of Moon and Turtle in Hilo, and Sheldon Simeon, chef/owner of Tin Roof in Kahului, Maui, are semifinalists for Best Chef in the Northwest and Pacific. In addition, Brian Hirata, chef/owner of Na‘au in Hilo, is nominated as Emerging Chef.
Final nominees will be announced on March 16, and winners will be honored in June at an awards gala in Chicago.
“I was very surprised,” said 45-year-old Pomaski of his first James Beard nomination, adding he knows almost all of the state’s semifinalists and “am proud to be included in that group.”
“People have been calling, texting and posting — everything. It’s been great,” Pomaski said.
Pomaski, a Hilo native who attended St. Joseph School and graduated from Hilo High School, opened Moon and Turtle in 2013 and operates the 40-seat Asian-fusion restaurant on Kalakaua Street in downtown Hilo with his wife, Soni.
Having worked a decade in sushi bars starting at age 19, Pomaski was discovered while he was helping to cater a wedding attended by Jackie Lau, then-corporate executive chef for Roy Yamaguchi’s restaurant empire.
“She was impressed with the sushi I was making, so she hired me to be the sushi chef for Roy’s Waikiki,” he said.
Pomaski was promoted to corporate sushi chef for Roy’s for three years before he and Soni moved to New York City, where he worked two years for legendary sushi chef/restaurateur Nobu Matsuhisa at Nobu Fifty Seven in midtown Manhattan.
“I learned a lot,” he said. “It was humbling for me, because I worked as a corporate chef where I could do what I wanted at Roy’s. And I started at the bottom at Nobu’s, where I was the only American national sushi chef.
“… I got to work with some of the best ingredients and had a great time.”
Upon their return to Hilo, the Pomaskis found the location for Moon and Turtle within a month. Like many restaurants, Moon and Turtle closed temporarily early in the pandemic. They later opened for takeout, serving bentos Pomaski called “the Moon and Turtle experience in a box” — and are now open for indoor dining.
“We’re lucky enough to have a good reputation. The demand is there, and people want to eat,” he said. “Our issue is what much of the industry is going through — finding people who want to work and are motivated.”
Hirata’s story is perhaps the unlikeliest among the nominees. And even though the award doesn’t have an age restriction, the irony of being nominated as Emerging Chef at 47 isn’t lost on him.
“I didn’t even know I was nominated, to be honest, until the results came out,” Hirata said. “My business partner, Gemma (Nishimura), sent a screenshot at 6 in the morning. I’m like, ‘What am I looking at?’ And she said, ‘You’re a semifinalist.’ And I’m like, ‘For what?’”
If you haven’t heard of Hirata, it’s probably because Na‘au isn’t a brick-and-mortar eatery, at least not yet. Hirata describes Na‘au — which does private dinners and pop-up events — as a “project” as opposed to a restaurant, and speaks with evangelical fervor about his mission “of preserving our food culture and our ingredients here in Hawaii.”
“It is an elevated, white-tablecloth fine-dining experience with local ingredients, basically,” he explained.
A fair amount of those ingredients are hunted, fished or foraged by Hirata himself, including wild game, seafood and produce such as hapu‘u and ho‘io ferns, plums from Maunakea and akala berries.
“We also try to focus on local farms and ranches here, not only to be hyper-local, but also to give our guests a good sense of place,” he said. “We have a group of small farmers and ranchers, and we get amazing product from them.”
According to Hirata, his private diners are about 80% visitors, while his public events draw about 70% local residents.
Hirata’s mission is largely educational. The Pearl City, Oahu, native taught culinary arts for 12 years at Hawaii Community College after serving as a sous chef for Chef Alan Wong at Four Seasons Resort Hualalai. Wong — who like Yamaguchi is a co-founder of Hawaii Regional Cuisine — serves as one of Hirata’s informal advisors.
“My students the past 12 years — and they’re mostly local — they didn’t know the ingredients I grew up eating,” Hirata said. “They’ve never seen it before. They never prepared it or caught it or foraged for it. And for me, that was a really big red flag that our food identity is in trouble right now.
“I want to share the information that I have with the younger generation of professional cooks, so that we can ultimately celebrate Hawaii cuisine and Hawaii ingredients.”
Hirata also was hit hard by the pandemic, saying Na‘au “literally did nothing for an entire year.”
“We didn’t do any dinners. And it was fortunate that I was still the program coordinator at the college. I had a salary,” he said.
In a leap of faith, Hirata left his tenured position in July 2021 to focus on Na‘au.
“I decided it was important enough to take this chance,” he said. “I sat on this idea for five years before I decided to pull the trigger. COVID did put a stall on the project in a lot of ways, but we’re slowly starting to find our footing, and we feel like we’re gaining a lot of momentum again.”
The third nominee, Hilo-born Sheldon Simeon, is arguably Hawaii’s most famous chef — and he’s still a few months away from turning 40.
A two-time finalist and fan favorite on Bravo TV’s “Top Chef,” his cookbook, “Cook Real Hawai‘i” — co-written with Garrett Snyder — still boasts strong sales almost a year after publication.
This is Simeon’s fourth time as a James Beard semifinalist, having been double-nominated in 2011 for Rising Star Chef of the Year and Best New Restaurant while working at Star Noodle in Kahului, plus nominations in 2019 for Best New Restaurant while executive chef at Lineage in Wailea, and in 2020 for Best Chef Northwest and Pacific at Lineage.
The fare at Tin Roof is an elevated version of local-style plate lunch and poke bowls, with favorites including mochiko chicken and pork belly. Operated by Simeon and his wife, Janice, the popular Maui eatery ceased indoor dining due to the pandemic, but has long lines for takeout.
“I’ve been in and out. I’ve been focusing on the promotion of the book and doing all kinds of other things,” Simeon said. “The people who should be celebrated is my crew and my team. Those are the guys that show up every day … do it with a smile and do it with confidence.
“Their loyalty and their constant hustle just amazes me.”
All three Beard-nominated chefs are acquainted, but haven’t seen each other much during the pandemic. But in a chance encounter, Simeon and Hirata had drinks and conversation in October in New York City.
“I was promoting my book and doing a pop-up, and he was doing a farm dinner in New Jersey,” Simeon said. “He had just had dinner at Le Bernardin, and I had just finished my pop-up. And we just happened to find each other in the city at the same time.
“It was cool to see two Hilo boys in the big city, just enjoying ourselves and being thankful for all of our accomplishments.”
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.