my husband and I got married on 6/10/22 at Moli'i Gardens and hired Memoirs for our food and bar.
After researching many caterers on island we were most interested in Memiors due to their locally sources food. The oysters during out cocktail hour came form Moli'i pond of which our guests were literally looking at while eating the apps! doesn't get much better than that! and that alone should speak for how fresh all the food was. Our guests were definitely impressed by the quality of food and also really loved the "family style" service they offered which allows for people to get a little taste of everything without having a buffet line.
They are definitely not the cheapest option on island, by the quality of food was super important my husband and I. and you'll soon realize that the price of caterers are still pretty expensive, sooo might as well get the real deal so you will literally not have to worry about how the food will taste or how the service will go bc you are hiring the best!
10/10 would recommend

I AM A BELIEVER.
For some background: We hired Memoirs to cater our outdoor wedding at Kualoa Ranch. We started off with a very tight budget with a guest count of 250 (local wedding, this is like a norm right?) While good food was a priority for us at our wedding, we were honestly just thinking about ordering from our favorite bento place to keep things easy, affordable, and appeal to the masses. We are a no frills kind of couple anyway, we just want good food for a good price.
Then, our wedding planner recommended Memoirs. I had never heard of Memoirs prior to her recommendation. When I started looking them up, I saw they had a fancy website with fancy dishes and said to myself, "nah, this must be way out of our budget, and our local families probably wouldn't appreciate it even if we could afford it."
But out wedding planner highly recommended them, and we totally trusted her, so we went for it.

BEST DECISION EVER MADE.

TASTING: Totally customizable tasting menu. You e-mail them a list of preferences or menus you like from their website, and they will finalize a tasting menu with you that will fit your budget (key here, they will work with whatever budget you have.) We are self-proclaimed "foodies" (or I'm just picky as heck), so we worked through at least 3 different menus and had 3 or maybe 4 different tastings? before we finalized everything for the big day. Chef John was there at each tasting to get feedback and adjust the menu to exactly what we wanted. I think each tasting is like $25 per person, depending on your choices, but as we found out, this is an extremely good value because we left completely stuffed, and even took home boxes of leftovers from our tastings.


FOOD: Our final menu was a hybrid of few of there standard items, and a few custom items based on our preferences. The quality of food is honestly like high-end $$$$ restaurant, but for a way more affordable price. All our guests couldn't stop raving about the food at our wedding, and kept asking us where it was from. Our final menu:
- Spicy beet poke on crispy rice cake
- Torched beef nigiri, ponzu and green onion
- Chicken pate on crostini, poha berry, yuzu caviar
- Local farm greens with shaved vegetables and honey macadamia vinaigrette
- Seared ahi belly and yuzu scallop with black garlic, soy caviar, and bamboo rice
- Grilled Andrade Ribeye and Herb roasted chicken, charred scallion potato and ponzu cream
- Strawberry and lilikoi shortcake
- Dark chocolate crunch bar with sea salt and caramel
- Matcha panna cotta with honey and toasted sesame (Custom dessert)

Also, just to note, our venue was completely unplugged, meaning no electricity, bathroom, and just a water hose on site. These guys had to carry in their own oven, power, etc, to PREP THE FOOD ON-SITE. SO IT IS DAMN FRESH.

SERVICE: Impeccable. Throughout the planning process, Taylor (managed most communications) and Chef John were always professional yet down-to-earth, and receptive to our feedback along the way for any changes we requested. On the day of the wedding, the entire team looked real slick and clean, and super professional, very prompt with plating dishes and removing excess trash.

COMMUNICATION: Excellent. They do get busy around peak wedding season, which is understandable. I had many many questions along the way (we were also a COVID wedding, so lots of rescheduling along the way), so the fact that they kept up with me is an accomplishment.

VALUE: Absolutely a steal, diamond in the rough, gem beyond gems, I don't even know how else to emphasize this!!! I am SO grateful our planner recommended these guys. They deliver HIGH QUALITY food and professional service that will work with your budget! Note. we were a COVID wedding, so what started as 250 guest count (and initial deposit was paid for a dinner serving 250 guests), had to be scaled down to about 80 guests. They were totally understandable and basically adjusted our menu to fit the deposit we already paid, and we paid very little if anything more after that.

**BONUS: So of course on wedding night, we were too busy/excited to eat, so unfortunately we didn't get to even touch our dessert that night. Chef John heard about this, and personally delivered a box of our wedding desserts to our home a week later. This guy and this team is an absolute GEM. I cannot emphasize this enough. These are wonderful people running an excellent business, and I will definitely be hiring them again for all of my future catering needs!

The food from here will not disappoint, it was all amazing. The servers were exceptional. When hiring, be aware that they do charge extra for everything, including chaffing dishes, coolers, and for us we had to rent an additional tent and stove top for them to use on the day. It's a lot of work, but the food on the day was definitely worth it. A few hiccups in communication from their team, but we are not letting that spoil the amazing service they provided.

Love Note from the Bride:
Nick and I planned a destination wedding for 115 of our closest friends and family. While I was hoping for sunshine, planning for a possible light sprinkle… what I, our guests, and our vendors did not plan or expect.. was for— was a MONSOON on our wedding day! I don’t mean to say it just rained… I mean, it literally POURED. There were even flash flood warnings! Every single guest and vendor was drenched from head to toe. They say rain on your wedding day is supposed to be good luck, and ours started this day with our vendors.

To the ENTIRE MEMOIRS TEAM, we don’t even know where to start, except by saying THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!!

Your entire team kept a smile on their face and a positive attitude throughout the entire day! Every single person, staff, chef, bartender, not one single person’s hard work went unnoticed. Everyone was selfless in walking back and forth from our tent to the kitchen and making sure Nick, I, and our wedding guests were their top priority. Not only did they ensure the food stayed warm and dry, but it was DELICIOUS!!! We decided on family style and the memoirs team even let Nick and I help put out some of the first platters to the tables, as a nice surprise to our guests! They also let us surprise our guests and get behind the bar to bartend during happy hour!! Our guests LOVED that!!

From initial reach out and partnership with our wedding planner Carly, to food tasting, planning, prep, execution and even follow up after our wedding, our entire experience with Memoirs was INCREDIBLE. We are so blessed to have had them on our team for our special day. Not only are they passionate about their food and service, but you can tell just how much of a family they are, and how much they care about their clients! We are SO lucky to have had them help us celebrate our big, wet day!!!

Love Note from the Groom:
Memoirs brought their A game to our wedding and it RAINED at an out door venue. They literally could not have been more dedicated to us. They set up all day in the rain, they cooked in the rain, they served in the rain, they cleared in the rain and they did it with smiles on their faces the whole time. The food is all Hawaii local, and it was AMAZING. We did a family style service and the food came out beautiful and delicious! We could not have possibly imagined a better team to put together a hillside table service in the POURING RAIN! A special shout out to Taylor the bartender for saving the groom the last shot of his favorite tequila!

Our guests are still talking to us about their fish, corn bread, and the purple potatoes! We did buffet-style for our wedding, so that the guests could pick and choose what they wanted and it was a huge hit! I should mention we had a lot of foodies from Los Angeles at our wedding, so we definitely wanted to make sure the food was incredible. Not only was their food amazing, but their staff was also so nice! My now-husband apparently looked like he was about to faint at one point during our wedding -- none of us noticed (oops), and their bartender came up to him with a glass of water and said I think you need this. She literally saved my husband from fainting in front of everyone. He told me afterwards that he was so thankful. If we ever do another event in Honolulu, we will definitely be calling Memoirs!

Having Memoirs do the catering for our wedding reception was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. Dealing with them from start to finish was an absolute pleasure, in planning they were very responsive and willing to accommodate the menu to all our needs and provided great suggestions to help with costs. On the day of, the staff just went above and beyond with the service bringing food and drinks out to us when we were taking pictures - so polite and courteous. The food itself was excellent, it was definitely one of the highlights of our wedding, all our guests commented on how great the food was. Overall they were consummate professionals in every aspect and I would work with them again in a heartbeat. Highly recommend!

Memoirs is absolutely superb in every aspect! They hold to the highest standard when it comes to catering exquisite meals and cocktails to our wedding guests. We are very blessed to have them as our vendor for our wedding, and now we can call them friends because they are a special group people who helped us with every little detail to provide a memorable experience to all our family and friends.

For the brides and grooms out there, we know the process of selecting a catering company to deliver the most memorable meal is not an easy task, but memoirs made it to so easy for us that we knew from the first day of meeting them that we wanted to work with them. Thomas and Chef Peter put a beautiful family style menu together for our wedding guests to enjoy, Rosanna provided the most spectacular dining experience with the team that was incredibly enjoyable for our guests and Noah crafted such delicious cocktails throughout the ceremony and reception that I continuously heard chatter from our guests of the amazing concoction he has provided.

We can both personally go on and on about how remarkable memoirs team was in every aspect because they made it so easy for us to adore every single team member. They are by far the sweetest group of people who are incredibly passionate about their work. You can tell from day one that they love what they do and they care about delivering exceptional results. They do it with so much love and passion that you can taste it through their meals.

Thank you so much, memoir! We are both incredibly blessed to have met and worked with you all. We hope you all know how much we appreciate you all for all the hard work that was put into making this evening happen! You all have helped deliver a memorable meal and cocktails that evening because I still hear about how great it was from our friends and family so thank you, thank you, thank you a million times!

Thank you! I honestly don’t know what to say other than thank you a million times over. From the start the Memoirs team were so helpful and were across all the food/drink and staff requests I had in the lead up to our destination wedding. Rosanna even picked up the fact I had accidentally made a typo on the number of vegetarian meals required and she saved the day by following-up for clarification rather than processing the request.

Our wedding food was lovely - the starters, entrees (mains) and those amazing malasadas as a dance floor snack were a treat! We wished we were able to do the traditional taste test but being destination we had to trust the pictures and the menu as well as the incredible reviews.

Our guests were over the moon with all the food - the salad course was then followed by either a fish, chicken or vegetarian entree (main) option and all were very enjoyed thoroughly. The bar was perfectly stocked with the drink requirements for the signature his and her cocktails as well as an abundance of beer and wine. We were very well looked after on the night with such attentive and friendly wait staff!

Rosanna, Thomas, Peter - Adam and I just want to thank you for all your hard work and effort you put into our special day, from the lead up to the day itself; your customer service was outstanding and it was a pleasure to work with you. Please pass on our thanks to all your staff too, they did an excellent job! Highly recommend for wedding catering - 5 stars!

My husband wrote a review a while back but Im still in awe of how amazing Memoirs were so I had to write a review! Choosing Memoirs as our caterer was truly one of the best choices we made for our wedding. Not just because their food is AMAZING but because they are so professional and we were amazed with their quality of service. We mostly communicated by emails but Thomas was super fast with responding and he would listen and work with us to meet our needs. We didn’t have a professional wedding planner so we were still worried if everything will go smoothly..however, Memoirs were SO on top of things and Rosanna was one of the most dependable person we got to work with so everything went perfect. Because they were there, I didn’t have to worry about anything on the day of and just got to enjoy the tasty food! Unfortunately it was pouring during our reception and they had to run in the rain but nobody complained and they kept professional throughout the event! ( I really hope nobody got sick!) Everybody LOVED the food and we got so many compliments. I am so thankful we chose them and I honestly want to have another wedding or event just so I could work with them and enjoy their food!

Memoirs was highly recommended to us by our coordinator, and we couldn't have been happier with their service. Thomas (Office Manager) was very responsive and listened to our concerns and worked within our budget. Chef Jeff Foster was great - we wanted Hawaiian food, but with a twist, and Chef Foster delivered. The appetizers (oxtail sliders, shiitake arancini, and hamachi ceviche in lumpia cones) were presented beautifully and were delicious. The hamachi ceviche in lumpia cones were the crowd favorite. The beef short rib was juicy and flavorful, the fish was flaky and well seasoned. My husband and I didn't get a chance to enjoy the dessert because right after it was served, we did our first dance - to our chagrin as people told us the dessert was one of their favorite parts of the meal. The servers always had a smile on their face, and were very friendly. We would definitely recommend Memoirs for any catered event.