Located in The Ritz-Carlton Residences, Waikīkī Beach, Solera officially opened in April. The restaurant — which is the re-branded La Vie, the hotel’s former French-inspired fine dining concept — recently debuted a new late-night happy hour menu.
The happy hour experience, called Afterglow, is available from 8 to 10 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays in Solera’s bar and lounge. Guests can make reservations for happy hour via OpenTable, or mention it when they check in with the restaurant host.
The drink menu features a variety of $10 cocktails, including a Mai Tai, Old Fashioned, and a rotating selection of martinis (including lychee, classic and seasonal varieties).
Afterglow’s food menu features an exclusive line-up of bar bites that can’t be found on Solera’s regular dinner menu (with the exception of the hashi-gori, but more about that later). The happy hour menu is the eatery’s version of late-night eats, according to executive chef Mel Fogata.
“A lot of this is the stuff I’d like to eat if I went out on a late night — having something with drinks and basically just having a good time,” he says. “A lot of the inspiration comes from my travels, either from the Mainland or going overseas, and connecting people together.”
Dishes on the happy hour menu range from $12 to $28 and are designed to share. The griddled cornbread ($12), served with whipped honey butter, features a recipe that has been passed down to Fogata from nearly 20 years ago.
“This is one of the first recipes that I learned in the kitchen,” he says. “This recipe has been handed down to me; every year, we also took a little bit of change to it. This version you see now is the 23rd iteration so far of what we have.”
Fogata explains that the cornbread is toasted on the griddle, the brushed with brown buttery honey, resulting in a sultry glaze.
“It gets a little caramelization on it right over the top,” he says. “Off to the side, you’ll have a brown buttery honey to continuously spread over.”
Fun fact: If you dine at Solera during dinner, the cornbread is the base of the eatery’s Johnny Cakes dish, which comes with caviar.
Designed to be a local favorite, these baby back ribs come from Mountain View Farms. They’re glazed with hoisin sauce, plum and a little bit of oyster sauce, according to Fogata. There’s also a touch of chili pepper water to add a slight spice.
“We cook this for about 36 hours, real low and slow; we glaze it every so often,” he says.
This fried rice ($20) is sure to make seafood lovers swoon, as it features plentiful bits of jumbo lump crab meat. It’s served with nori on the side “so you can have fun and treat it just like sushi,” according to Fogata.
“Other than egg, Spam and rice, I always loved a combination of crab and rice,” he says. “Every late night when I come home, I always have a leftover pot of rice in the fridge. What’s the best way to eat it? For me, it’s having a little bit of fried rice.
“To enhance it, we added jumbo lump crab and crab fat,” he adds. “The crab fat adds a lot of umami unctuousness to it.”
The Solera burger ($28) is probably one of the best burgers I’ve ever had. Granted, it features an 8-ounce American wagyu patty with house steak sauce, tomme cheese and “Solera Caesar” between soft poi buns. The tender, beefy wagyu patty is a game changer and makes the burger ultra indulgent.
“You can’t go to a late-night bar without burgers,” Fogata says.
He also explains that the Solera Caesar is the eatery’s version of the classic Caesar salad, but instead of an anchovy dressing, it includes turmeric and a fermented soybean to achieve an anchovy-like flavor. The tomme cheese comes from Sweet Land Farm.
“It combines a lot of different elements and experiences that we have here,” he says.
No burger is complete without fries, and in this case, tater tots. Playful yet elevated, these caviar loaded tater tots ($20) are Solera’s version of an over-the-top baked potato, according to Fogata.
“We used to always have leftover potato skins, especially in kitchens on the Mainland,” Fogata says. “We used to deep-fry them at the end of service, and add a little bit of sour cream, cheddar cheese and bacon over the top. That was our late-night snack.”
Tater tots are addictive in and of themselves, but I loved this fancy version with cheese foam, caviar and fresh chives. The tots are perfectly golden and crispy, which contrasts nicely with the salty caviar and velvety cheese.
Customers can also choose from dishes like char siu sausage ($20) — made with Island Sausage — and garlic chive yakisoba ($18), which feature elevated twists on local favorites.
Solera’s hashi-gori dessert ($22), which is available on the eatery’s dinner menu, is also available during the late-night happy hour. The restaurant’s twist on the popular Japanese shaved ice dessert is available in four housemade flavors — strawberry, mango, pistachio and chocolate. Guests can enhance their desserts by adding a shot of G. LION Hawaii Private Label Woodford Reserve (additional $16), which is a single-barrel bourbon that features a smooth texture.
“The ice is shaved to a nice paper thin,” Fogata says. “The syrups that we have here just coat the ice. When you’re enjoying this, you’ll notice that when you break into it, the sauce creates a shell, so nothing actually melts.”
Pro tip: The eatery also recently launched a new kamaʻāina weekdays special, which gives guests with a valid Hawaiʻi State ID a 15% discount on the entire food bill (excluding alcohol), every Tuesday through Thursday. This offer is valid until the end of August.
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CONTACT
Solera
The Ritz-Carlton Residences, Waikīkī Beach
383 Kalaimoku St., Honolulu
808-729-9729
Solerawaikiki.com
Instagram: @solerawaikiki
Afterglow late-night menu available Fridays and Saturdays, 8-10 p.m.
Complimentary valet parking when you dine at Solera
Kelli Shiroma Braiotta can be reached at kelli@alohastatedaily.com.
