Hawaii's Share Your Table

“Remember family scenes from The Godfather?” Master Sommelier Chuck Furuya asks. Well, there are quite a few we remember, but the ones Furuya’s referring to are the ones that involve family celebrations with a long, communal table laden with food. “When you think about it, that’s how country people eat in the Mediterranean,” Furuya says. And this convivial atmosphere—that is as much about the people around the table as the food and wine—is what Furuya and Vino Chef Keith Endo set out to create at least once a month at Vino Italian Tapas & Wine Bar. 

While the menus tend to lean toward Italian for Communal Table dinners, they also provide a canvas for Chef Endo’s latest obsessions. For one dinner, it was paella, for another, fresh handmade pastas, and for an upcoming dinner, wild mushrooms. Wine pairings are offered: for a Wild Mushroom Strudel, Furuya pours a 2007 Tres Ojos “Old Vine Garnacha” from Spain. For a Short Rib Capeletti with a sweet and salty unagi kabayaki demi glace, Furuya pairs a CF Riesling “Euro-Asian” medium dry, “made with just a hint of sweetness and a perfect foil for slightly sweet Asian preparations,” Furuya says. CF (for Chuck Furuya) Wines are made for the DK Restaurant Group, for warm weather sipping and mostly for our Island foods. “We do not make any additional monies because it is our own label,” Furuya says. “We did it so we could get really good wine at affordable prices with year around availability.”

Remember family scenes from The Godfather?”

And what of the “communal” table? “Rather than having your own starter and your own entrée and every now and then looking up to ask your neighbors if they want to try it, the food goes in the middle of the table,” Furuya says. “The middle is then the focus, not everyone staying within their own space with their own foods. It creates interaction, fun, conversation...especially when the wine flows.”