Monkeypod Kitchen by Merriman

Monkeypod Kitchen by Merriman opened in 2024 at 2169 Kalia Road, inside the OUTRIGGER Reef Waikiki Beach Resort, as the anchor restaurant of an $85 million transformation of the hotel. It belongs to chef Peter Merriman's Handcrafted Restaurants group — Merriman is one of the twelve chefs who founded Hawaii Regional Cuisine in 1991, the movement that pushed Hawaiʻi's restaurants towards local sourcing and away from imported convention — and the Monkeypod format applies that thinking at a more casual price point than his flagship rooms.

The non-alcoholic offer is worth taking seriously in context. Waikīkī is the hardest district in the state to drink nothing in: it is dense with resort bars whose entire business model is the mai tai, and the standard accommodation for a non-drinker is a fruit juice at cocktail prices. Monkeypod runs mocktails as a designated section of its menu with named, specified builds. The Virgin Monkeypod Mai Tai is the important one, because the mai tai is the drink Waikīkī sells more than any other, and a zero-proof version means somebody at the table can order what everyone else is ordering by name — the social equivalence that matters more to most people than novelty does. The Blind Tiger, built on hibiscus and lavender soda, is the more interesting drink on its own terms, floral and dry where the format usually defaults to sweet. The Green Fevah completes the trio. Hours are unusually generous for a restaurant of this type, 7am to 11pm daily, with happy hour from 3.30pm to 5pm and a late-night happy hour from 9pm to 11pm, which means the room works for breakfast, an afternoon drink, dinner or a nightcap. For a group split between drinkers and non-drinkers staying anywhere near the beach, it is the single most practical booking in this guide.