Easy to admit those kitchen phrases still bring the intrigue. If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. Out of the frying pan into the fire—meaning, how much worse can the Covid pandemic challenges get? Melissa Kaiawe and Chris Shultz, owners of Gill’s Lanai, take the heat and then some. Gifted restauranteurs for several decades, helming myriad roles from dishwasher to general manager, they bring plenty fire to cook ono menu items at their outdoor café in Kapaau, northenest north tip on Big Island, which is North Kohala.

Kaiawe’s ambition for Gill’s Lanai, a restaurant that she and Schultz bought six months into the Covid pandemic, blasts most of us on culinary visits into layering.  Mouthfuls of food served bring flavor layers, one distinct direction after the next. 

Take this Chicken Pho, in a paper bowl, soft chicken, long pulled pieces, rest on the bottom soaking in pho broth that glistens as a few globules of savory chicken fat give one layer of flavor while fresh basil leaves shredded into the broth, a time immemorial pho ritual, add another layer, just as the spoon arrives full to my lips, I spy a thin jalapeno slice in there: simmered chicken broth, fresh basil, chunk of chicken, and sliced jalapeno total four distinct flavors in one spoonful. Someone taught me how to spell heaven in 2nd grade, yet Gill’s Lanai keeps reinventing that literacy lesson. As a life-long learner, I think I’ll keep going back to this foodie school.

Kaiawe posts on the chalkboard sign outside, the recent invention or culinary offering for that day. Each morning when she pulls back the kitchen screen door to peruse her domain, the creativity spikes. That culinary chase, will she conjure an ono entrée today, brings the sparkle to her eye and lively grit to her voice when she describes why she and Chris bought Gill’s Lanai. “The fun part is creative saucing, mixing on a palette like an artist,” Kaiawe riffs.

To give themselves space and time, the first two months after purchase, they treated the kitchen as an experimental one. Rather than reinvent the previous menu, they kept the same selections and, instead, created enhanced flavors for these dishes.

For instance, the Bahn mi sandwich used to begin with pan flavoring for its meat that Kaiawe realized lost kick once cooled. Instead, she invented a lemongrass aioli that she applies seconds before the bahn mi arrives to the table. Another flavor layering hit. A few months after opening, they sold six bahn mi and now routinely they sell 30 a day. Or take the condiment that arrives with the Chicken Pho, a small container of fresh garlic and hot pepper flakes sauteed together in oil that makes for a picante side sauce.

And having indulged in most menu selections, the results are in. All arrive with poignant flavor: fish tacos, kalua pork quesadilla with goat cheese, fish and chips, poke bowls, and more.

Innovative food flavors inspire Kaiwae and Schultz, yet the role they play in local Kohala culture matters fervently as well. Over lunch at Pomaika’i Café, the couple bring their four-year-old son Logan, then retell the Roots Skatepark in Kapaau anecdote where they gifted 400 tacos and 100 hot dogs to Kohala keiki and adults alike. Food events as layering community bonds appears as another generosity the team brings. Skateboarding keiki will often visit Gill’s Lanai, curious what a pocket of change will buy. One day when Chris simply gifted some food and water to the keiki pack, one altruistic customer, who saw the donation, then gave Chris $100 cash to keep the ethics going.