maui food [trucks] // where to eat in maui

We ate a lot of good food in when we went to Hawaii earlier this summer. This is a super straight forward post about where to eat in Maui, should you find yourself there, particularly in the Lahaina/Kaanapali area, which is where we stayed. Obviously there are plenty of other places to eat. We can only fit so much into one week, hard as we tried to go for it all! I grouped our selections by meal below to hopefully make it a little easier to digest:

Dinner

1. Mala Ocean Tavern

   Make a reservation for sunset. You can request to be on the patio, and they will do their best to honor your request, but can’t guarantee it. This was probably my favorite meal we had. Everything about it lended to the experience. It’s in downtown Lahaina and the exterior is unassuming, but the interior is beautiful and it is right on the water. We were able to sit on the patio, with the sun setting over the water, and the waves crashing up over the wall, onto our feet. The service is absolutely fantastic, from the hostess to the servers, and the food is incredible - I had the Balinese stirfry with fresh island fish, but with the Molokai purple mash potatoes instead of rice, per recommendation. Definitely get dessert and make it the butterscotch pot de crème, which I would have never chosen on my own, but was suggested by our phenomenal server.

2. Aloha Mixed Plate

   This place is all about the experience. They also host a luau every night, and it’s right on the water as well (next to Mala), so you can hear the luau and choose to have traditional food prepared for it, which is what we did. I will say, this was not my favorite food-wise, but just because it was unique and not my typical cup of tea. This dinner was more about the overall experience of the meal and the atmosphere, which is why I would still highly recommend. The dessert (pineapple upside down cake, which happens to be gluten free) was out of this world. If nothing else, plan your night to stop by just for this!

3. Maui Tacos

   A local chain, and not at all fine dining, but the blackened fish taco was so good we went once for lunch and returned a second time for dinner to go.

4. Maui Food Truck Park

   This location (also the backdrop for this shoot) happened to be walking distance from our resort, and was a fun place to grab dinner and either sit under the lights or bring back to our hotel, which is what we did the first night after our arrival following a long long day of traveling. Cassidy got some BBQ, which was great, and I opted for poké bowls both times we walked over.

Brunch

1. Down the Hatch

   Also in downtown Lahaina, which is closer to where we stayed, it’s fully outdoors and features live music, depending on what time you arrive. We of course were on eastern time, so were up and at ‘em and arrived by 8am Hawaiian time (2pm ET), but the music had usually started up about the time we were headed out. The huevos rancheros montaña did not disappoint, and Cass enjoyed his chicken & waffles. It was such a fun little place to sit and hang out in the beautiful weather, then get coffee (iced of course), to walk around Lahaina before all the tourists were awake and crowding. We later learned it was featured on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives, and the other meals also look incredible.

2. Paia Bowls

   Hands down the best açaí bowl I’ve ever had. An Instagram-friend, Marit Engdal [@marit1306], suggested this to me. Paia is a little surf town and a stop on The Road to Hana. We enjoyed walking around, and Cassidy hit up Paia Bay Coffee & Bar for coffee and banana bread. This little gem was certainly worth the drive for us from Lahaina!

3. Break The Wall

   The second time we went to Down the Hatch, I ventured “next door” to their sister açaí/shaved ice/coffee shop for a giant but delicious açaí bowl.

Dessert

1. The Shave Ice Spot

   You can’t go wrong and you must get the shaved ice somewhere because they’re everywhere, but we enjoyed going to this modest location for an afternoon pick-me-up since it was close to our resort, but we also felt like it had the best syrup to ice ratio, and was a good bang for your buck versus the couple others where we indulged.

2. Hawaii Gelato

   Yum. I wish I had gone here more often because what I had and everything I sampled was delicious! Unfortunately that whole time change thing kept us from venturing out too far beyond sunset dinners. It was kind of nice to be on a vacation where we felt like we had slept in, but still got to enjoy the entire day!

3. Mala Ocean Tavern and Aloha Mixed Plate

   The aforementioned butterscotch pot de crème and the pineapple upside down cake, respectively. Seriously, I would go to both of these places just for the sweets!

Again, there are plenty of great places to go, but these are the ones we enjoyed most (because yes, I did I leave a few off the list!) And if you do go to Hawaii, enjoy! Because I sure can’t wait to return!