Hawaii has more restaurants per square mile than almost anywhere in America. It also has more bad meals per unsuspecting tourist than almost anywhere in America — because the gap between where locals eat and where visitors end up is enormous, and most available information actively points you in the wrong direction.
The Problem With Most Hawaii Dining Guides
The majority of Hawaii restaurant recommendations you will find — in travel magazines, on food apps, in hotel concierge guides, on travel websites — share one feature: the restaurants in them paid, in some form, to be there. Not always directly. Sometimes it is a gifted tasting. Sometimes a sponsored post. Sometimes a hotel partnership or affiliate commission. The mechanism varies. The outcome is the same: the guide recommends what it has been compensated to recommend, not what is actually worth your time.
For a visit that costs thousands of dollars to reach, eating at places selected by someone else’s financial relationship is an expensive mistake.
What Thirty Years of Independent Eating Looks Like
Matthew Gray has been eating Hawaii professionally since the early 1990s. He has reviewed more than 1,000 restaurants across all six islands. He was the restaurant critic for Hawaii’s largest daily newspaper. He founded Hawaii Food Tours and ran it as the number one ranked food experience in the state for sixteen years.
In all of that time, he has never accepted a free meal in exchange for a review. Never taken a paid placement. Never entered a commercial relationship with any restaurant he recommended. Every meal in the Ultimate Eater’s Guide was paid for out of pocket.
That is not the norm. It is vanishingly rare in travel and food publishing.
What the Guide Covers
All six islands — fully updated for 2026, including new openings and recent closures. Because a dining guide is useless if it sends you to a restaurant that closed in 2023.
- Oahu
- Maui
- Big Island
- Kauai
- Molokai
- Lanai
Best restaurants at every price point. Must-order dishes. What to skip. Hidden gems locals know. Most guides ignore Molokai and Lanai entirely. This one doesn’t.
What It Costs
$9.99. Less than one overpriced tourist appetizer. Instant download on Kindle — read on iPhone, Android, tablet, or any device. No special app required.
One purchase that pays for itself the moment it steers you away from your first mediocre meal in paradise.