Ke Nui Kitchen

We loved Ke Nui Kitchen's food! It was super delicious and there was plenty of it. The staff was really kind and professional. I highly recommend Ke Nui Kitchen for your wedding caterer!

The food with Ke Nui Kitchen is creative, innovative, local, and so ono (good) for your event. Having our wedding at Waimea Valley, we were happy to use Ke Nui Kitchen for our catering and bar service. The menu choices are endless, but with Nicole's help we were able to create a pupu (appetizer) and dinner menu within our budget, but without compromising on quality. The food was a hit with our guests. Everyone couldn't stop raving about the amazing options we had decided on. The cake was also made in-house by Caroline and we were able to have 3 tiers with 3 different flavors. Perfect to satisfy each of our unique guests. Working with Ke Nui Kitchen was so easy and we promise you won't be disappointed.

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 afterwards. Their professionalism made this aspect of wedding planning very smooth and stress-free for us. We highly recommended them!

Caroline baked the perfect wedding cake for my daughter and son-in-law! We were in need of a vegan carrot cake that would taste great for all of our guests. We were blown away by the lush flavor, texture and presentation.

We saw Ke Nui Kitchen at the Bridal Expo at Kualoa Ranch in February. My fiancé LOVED their food and we only wanted Ke Nui Kitchen as our caterers. However, similar to other brides I had horrible communication problems with Ke Nui Kitchen. The initial inquiry I sent to them was form fillable through their website on Feb 16 and I heard back from Trudy on Feb 17 saying they would put something together for me. I was super excited and anxiously awaited for a response. I hear nothing back after that and request a follow up on March 6th, then receive a response on March 7th that includes a sample menu and quote. We then have a bit of back and forth to schedule a phone call. The phone call was OK- she seemed totally unprepared, and said she forgot to send me additional sample menus and tasting info (which was then sent during the call). After the phone call she was supposed to send me a revised menu. I hear NOTHING, again. I wait a while to follow up knowing that we don't have times in our schedule for a tasting until the summer and wait to hear back giving them the benefit of the doubt. I follow up on May 28th requesting the revised menu and asking when we can schedule a tasting. No response. I send one final follow up on June 14th asking when we can schedule a tasting. I still haven't heard anything back , not even a courtesy "we're busy" or "your date is no longer available." At this point I feel we have no choice but to move on. We weren't even considering another caterer for our wedding and only wanted Ke Nui Kitchen. However, it really shouldn't be this difficult to pay someone THOUSANDS of dollars. I can only imagine how many clients they are losing out on because of their horrible communication. Even if I heard from them at this point I don't think they're worth the added stress of trying to track down. Can you imagine if they ghosted like this before your wedding? Do yourself a favor and find someone that's able to respond to a basic email.

They catered my daughters wedding in July 7, 2017, prior to this we had a tasting with them, were trilled and on the wedding day just as trilled, food was great, staff was helpful the whole time, Trudy showed up and stayed awhile which i didn't expect, and when they were done..you wouldn't even know they were there..the wedding was for 120 guest!!

So fresh and delicious! We met with Ke Nui Kitchens for a tasting, only one month before our small wedding, and they came through for us with flying colors and such ono food! They worked with us to have options for our 15 guests, and even one specialty plate for a particular dietary restriction, with absolutely no problems or complications! They came to our venue at Kualoa Ranch, set up, and everything was perfect. The staff on site were gracious and helpful, very attentive. I was a very happy bride! And I managed to eat and enjoy the food. Mahalo for making this such a special day for us.

We booked Ke Nui Kitchens for our wedding catering at Loulu Palm and everything was just excellent. The food was as fresh and to the highest quality you could hope for. Many of our guests are real foodies and so many of them commented that the food was amazing. We loved hearing comments like 'everyone on our table went back for seconds'. Trudy was so lovely and easy to work with. Some old reviews make comments about some communication challenges but I really think these comments are now out of date. Trudy was efficient and prompt in her communication as we worked through all the details for our event. We couldnt be happier with Ke Nui Kitchens and highly recommend them to any others planning an event.

My wedding with KNK couldn't have been better. They accommodated all 300 of our guests and still created an elegant and organized atmosphere. Our friends and family absolutely loved the food and so did we. It's been over a year, and we still have our friends reminiscing about the braised beef short ribs! The owner, Thomas, worked with me to create the dream wedding I wanted. In the end my husband and I have a memory to share that is like a fairytale. Thanks Ke Nui Kitchen!!! -The Kings

KNK was amazing. They were a little hard to get ahold of at first, but since Thomas has hired some new people, they are must more responsive. I can't say enough how great they were. They helped me on my wedding day and did way better than my coordinator. I highly recommend them. EVERYONE loved the food. Even from the pickiest of eaters to my husband who loves everything. They were affordable and they did our cakes as well. They also gave us a "to go" bag and I'm so happy they did, because I was so nervous for the ceremony, that by the time the reception happened I had such a horrible headache, I couldn't eat. They're way better than Hawaiian Fresh Farms. I would hire them again for non-wedding events.

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 online, 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.

I cannot rave enough about Thomas, his food and his staff! We were able to create our own menu with him and included some of his signature dishes. We couldn't decide on which two appetizers to go with so we just went for all three choices! All of our guests were amazed by the food and his staff was always courteous and on point. I wish I could eat his food everyday!