Both Amanda Cheng and Makoto Ono’s families owned restaurants in Canada: Cheng’s mother had a Chinese restaurant in Vancouver and Ono’s parents had a sushi restaurant in Winnipeg, said to be that city’s first when it opened in the ’80s. Today, Cheng and Ono are the husband-and-wife team behind Arden Waikiki in the Lotus Honolulu Hotel. Ono originally studied fine arts before he switched to the culinary arts: “I’ve always been interested in art,” he says. “I saw how food uses the same forms. What I had learned I was able to translate with food.” As for Cheng, she says matter-of-factly, “I just like eating!” Their two perspectives fuse in the plates at Arden, where the creations are beautiful, but not overwrought, where the flavors are simultaneously delicate and direct.

Take the Maui venison tartare: the fine-cut cubes arriving beneath scattered mizuna leaves, as if hidden in the forest floor, a nod perhaps to the wild provenance of the meat. Bubu Arare and slices of okra provide pops of texture to the clean taste of Maui’s deer. Kaua‘i prawns are presented simply, split in half, and dressed with shio koji butter, chili garlic crunch and a squeeze of Calamansi. Some menu items are playful, like French fries with a smoked mentaiko (salted, spicy cod roe) dip. For one dish, what at first appears to be toast served with a stick of butter is revealed to be a foie gras terrine.

Arden is the latest of the duo’s projects that have taken them around the world. After culinary school in Vancouver, Ono worked in London for chefs including Marco Pierre White. Then, after a few years back in Winnipeg and winning the inaugural Canadian culinary championships, he headed to Beijing, where investors courted Ono to open a self-titled, massive luxury Japanese restaurant just ahead of the 2008 Summer Olympics. The ambitious project was short-lived, however, and he decamped to Hong Kong to open a private supper club, where he met Cheng, who had come to Hong Kong for vacation. Cheng, a Culinary Institute of America graduate, moved to Hong Kong and ran her own spot, a diminutive dessert bar.

Eventually, the two returned to Canada and opened restaurants, the most recent being Mak N Ming in Vancouver, a 28-seat tasting menu restaurant with French and Japanese leanings. They ran it for five years before closing it in 2021 when they decided to come to Honolulu. Cheng wanted to be close to family—her mother went to McKinley High School, and her brother and nieces live here—while Ono was drawn to the Japanese influences in Hawai‘i.

Invited to take over the kitchen at the Lotus Honolulu at the end of 2023, Ono and Cheng apply their techniques and experience for contemporary Hawaiian cuisine, where local ingredients inspire the menu. Ahi takes center stage in a treatment that resembles a steak of beef, a meaty filet crusted with black pepper and served with hollandaise and peppery local watercress. Roasted carrots are paired with black sesame butter, Sweet Land Farm goat cheese and shavings of pickled carrots—a composite of sweet and tangy, creamy and crisp.

In charge of desserts, Cheng likes to highlight tropical flavors, as with the Baked Hawai‘i, a perfect little dome of coconut and mango sorbet over a black sesame chiffon cake covered with toasted meringue.

Driven not just by the taste of local flavors, Cheng says they are also trying to build the community and economy they’d like to see in Hawai‘i. “Hawai‘i already imports 90% of its food. It’s easier and cheaper to do this. But if we don’t support local farmers and purveyors, then more people will just move away, and the local economy already relies so much on tourism. It would be better if Hawai‘i could have other economies. We don’t use all local like some restaurants [that] cook from a strong locavore philosophy, and don’t want people to feel intimidated. That’s not us. We try our best and hope people will too. Just being aware and trying to support local is good enough. Every small step in the right direction counts.”

Arden Waikīkī is located in the Lotus Honolulu Hotel; 2885 Kalākaua Ave., 2nd Floor, Honolulu; (808) 791-5151; ardenwaikiki.com; Dinner Wednesday - Sunday 5:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.