Ke Nui Kitchen

My wife and I used KNK for our wedding in March 2024. We are on the mainland (Washington), so most of our communication was virtual via email, phone, and video calls. We visited them in September 2023 and they adjusted their schedule to accommodate our short visit so we could have a food tasting and cake tasting.

Throughout the wedding planning process, Mikhaila at KNK was very communicative and accommodating to us. We had so many questions and she was always very prompt in responding to us. She helped us make our catering menu personalized to us and our tastes!

Dessert- We enjoyed how we were able to create our own cake flavor combinations. Our cake was guava cake, guava curd, and coconut frosting. Delicious! We also ordered cake shooters and those were equally delicious.

Shave Ice Bar- We wanted to offer a cool, sweet treat to our guests. The shave ice bar was a huge hit! You pick several flavors to have on stock, plus some toppings for guests to choose from. Refreshing and sweet!

Premium Bar- We could not afford the open bar option, so we opted for a limited bar package for our guests. We picked from a variety of packages. They also were open to adjusting the package to suit our needs and tastes. For example, decreasing the amount of wine bottles and adding more hard seltzers.

Food- Food was prepared on-site during our wedding. It was all delicious! Every dish was delicious-- but our favorites were the pork lechon and kimchi brussel sprouts.

We received a lot of compliments from our guests about the food. We highly recommend them!

Ke Nui Kitchen gave us a true farm to table experience that drew rave reviews from our wedding guests. It's difficult to prepare food for larger parties, but their staff cooks the food on site and serves it fresh and hot to guests.

A few months before our wedding, we did a food tasting that is included in the booking. Every dish was delicious, so it was difficult to choose our final menu! During the tasting they also took notes on any changes in preparation, from using slightly less soy sauce to substituting an ingredient.

While every dish was great, our favorites were the asparagus salad, kimchi Brussel sprouts and their huli brasa chicken. We also had Ke Nui Kitchen cater our rehearsal lunch. We gave them a location and they dropped off the food right on time. They set up the trays and provided serving utensils for us.

We got a lot of compliments from our guests. Their professionalism made this aspect of wedding planning very smooth and stress-free for us. We highly recommended them!

KNK catered our wedding at Waimea Valley this June (6/22). I have never ever ever heard people respond to wedding food the way they did for KNK! I wish I could eat what we had every single day, it was so delicious. And they even sent us home with food since we didn't have the chance to eat much at the wedding - so thoughtful! They were completely on top of every detail and dietary restriction; every server was kind with a smile on their face. Our guests were so incredibly pleased, I think we've spoiled them for every other catered event! And our guests are foodies to boot!

We had - Huli Huli chicken, short ribs, poke on taro chips, veggie spring rolls, pork torchon on a lettuce wrap, lillikoi cheesecake, chocolate cake shooters - and MOST importantly kimchi fried brussel sprouts!

Whether your event is at Waimea Valley or not, you can't go wrong using Ke Nui Kitchen for any event!

Unfortunately, I feel like this catering company isn't the most helpful. They are located in the beautiful valley of Waimea, and my fiance and I found them from a wedding expo we went to. Not only was the food average (the "Smoking Boar & the Coconut" restaurant down the street has tastier options honestly), They seem to gouge couples with every little thing. For example, they have ridiculous service charges in addition to delivery fees and food costs. We asked them to deliver late night snacks to our wedding venue that is only 5 miles away, and for 80 pieces of late night snacks, the service charge is over $650, not including the food or delivery fee. We are talking about 80 mini snacks to be delivered 5 miles away, it costs $650 service, plus a few hundred dollar delivery fee, plus $5/per spam. Honestly, I'm just disappointed in this catering company and their ethics, and their customer service. Lack of prompt communication throughout, and lack of aloha for local couples getting married on island; the experience simply was not the friendliest, nor did it feel like they wanted to work with you to fit your budget requirements. I highly recommend one of the private chefs on island, or local restaurants who cater- their costs are way more reasonable, more responsive, and they are way more eager to work with you and your budget. Send me a private message if you'd like a list of private chefs we are going with for our rehearsal and reception dinners.

My husband and I used Ke Nui Kitchen to cater our wedding on 4/27/2019. From the first tasting to the last bite, Ke Nui never ceased to amaze us! We worked with Nicole, who was friendly, professional and knowledgable! Between our taste buds, her suggestions and the chefs talent we had delicious food from beginning to end! Not only was everything delicious, the service was truly top notch! All the servers were professional and quick, serving our hungry guests throughout cocktail hour! We also had Ke Nui provide bartenders for the evening. There was NEVER a line! Both bartenders were efficient and friendly, serving up delicious drinks all night long!

Overall, the service and food were absolutely perfect! We were so impressed by every detail, flavor and design! It was the perfect choice for our perfect wedding day!

The food was amazing
We had them cater our backyard wedding reception
It was beautiful
We had Japanese eggplant with miso brown butter cauliflower risotto that was incredible.
The fresh catch, monchong, with ginger escabeche wrapped in banana leaf was amazing and the kimchee fried Brussels sprouts blew some minds
We had a lot of people asking who our caterer was
The portion sizes were good and the price was very reasonable
We had some issues with getting in contact with them, but Anthony from California in the kitchen was so nice and honest we were practically sold after talking to him. Trudy was also awesome and great with communicating.
I highly recommend them to anyone looking for amazing farm to table style cuisine

Thomas catered our event at a private home on the North Shore. He was very thoughtful when planning out an appropriate menu. On the day of the event, everything was delivered fresh, hot and on time.
We are very grateful for the support and how the food added to the overall experience.
Thanks Ke Nui Kitchen !

My husband and I recently held our wedding and dinner reception at Waimea Valley, which, if you've read any of the other comments, you know provides Ke Nui Kitchen as the only catering option.

Interactions with KNK staff were mostly great--Trudy and Buffy are very helpful and flexible to every little special request so that it truly is a customized experienced. Sometimes response times via email were slow, but I didn't mind so much and anticipated that as the Hawaiian way:) Whenever I needed a quick response, I would call them and that worked well.

On the day of the event, all KNK staff were on their A-game. They were professional and responsive and thoughtful (they reserved plates of appetizers for me and my husband while we were busy taking photos!). I appreciated that the buffet servers explained what each menu item was and how to eat it (we got the luau menu, which was new to all of us mainlanders), and I loved that the head chef was there, too!

The food was DYNAMITE. I am salivating just thinking about it. It truly was phenomenal and even my dad, who is a gourmet chef, was very impressed. KNK's pastry chef, Caroline, made our wedding cake and it was the very first ice cream wedding cake she had ever made (this is what I mean when I talk about special requests!). She knocked it out of the park! It looked absolutely phenomenal and tasted even better than it looked (if that's even possible). I still dream about that wedding cake.

Their follow-up after the event was prompt and thorough (thanks, Buffy!). I would highly recommend KNK to anyone. They made our wedding day truly magical.

Had one of their poke bowls at the Volcom Pipe Pro. Very pleasantly surprised by the top quality ingredients, fresh local greens, and delicious spicy ahi. Hubby and I really enjoyed the way they didn't over season the fish and let the ahi shine which is possible when the fish is of this quality! Ono!

My fiance and I were looking at Waimea Valley as a possible venue for our wedding ceremony and reception - it was one of our top choices. Unless your event is held at Waimea Valley's restaurant, The Proud Peacock, all catering is done by Ke Nui Kitchen. We had seen the great reviews on Yelp, so that was no problem for us! We met with Francesca from Ke Nui Kitchen on 11/21/15 immediately after our site tour of the valley. The meeting went well, I think - Francesca was very friendly and receptive to the ideas my fiance and I had. We left feeling really good about the consultation, and we were excited to see what Ke Nui Kitchen came up with for our reception.

We waited until after Thanksgiving before following up with them, figuring that it was the holidays, so it was only to be expected that the office might be closed, or employees would be out on vacation. I sent a follow up e-mail to info@kenuikitchen.com (taken from their website contact info) on 12/1/16. No response. I tried again on 12/4 - this time using the e-mail address provided by Waimea Valley that went directly to KNK's sales manager, Kaily. Success! I got a reply the next business day. Apparently, Francesca was no longer with the company, and Kaily was having to play "catch up" on the resulting added work load. Not the best news ever, but totally understandable. Okay, so where do we go from here? Kaily found Francesca's notes from our consultation, and stated that she would "create [our] preliminary quote and menu ASAP!"

Well, a month went by without so much as a peep from KNK. They had forgotten about us. Again. Or they decided that our small wedding wasn't worth their time. I'm not sure, but I gave them the benefit of the doubt and went with the "they forgot about us again" theory. The first time our info slipped through the cracks was bad enough, but understandable (I get it, stuff happens that you can't control). When it happens a second time, then it starts to show a distressing trend. Can you imagine what might happen if they lost an employee or if one of them got sick right before your wedding? Would they forget to show up?

So I sent another e-mail to Kaily on 1/7/16 telling her how disappointed my fiance and I were that we had never heard back from them. I told her that we understand that being short-staffed around the holidays can create a back log of work, but that really can't excuse the complete lack of communication. We had no faith in their reliability. I let them know that since it had been so long, we had little choice but to move on with our planning process without them, and that we would no longer need a quote from them (if they were even still working on it).


Of course, they didn't respond to that either...

We saw KNK at the Hawaii Bridal Expo a couple of weeks ago. I didn't see them greet anyone coming up to the booth, or talking to the brides and grooms-to-be to explain what their food was - I had to ask what they were serving. Then the girl at the booth went back to reading her magazine or looking at her phone, or whatever it was she was doing instead of trying to bring in new potential customers. I did actually try one of their sample dishes there, and it was the best thing I ate at the expo! It just made me more upset that they had such a great product, but really couldn't care less.