Elevated comfort food with Lilikoi Kitchen in Kailua

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – A chef specializing in scratch kitchen cooking is serving up elevated island comfort food in the heart of Kailua.

Lilikoi Kitchen chef-owner Bianca Alsip-Freeny is also the culinary entrepreneur behind Tailor Made Custom Catering. She joined HNN’s Sunrise to showcase some of her popular baked goodies and dishes, including lilikoi pancakes, garlic shrimp, duck fat loco moco, and ribeye with housemade chimichurri sauce. She also makes lilikoi dressing and other sauces from scratch.

Alsip-Freeny says her passion and love for culinary arts started when she made family meals with her great grandmother and father at a very young age.

“My great grandmother was a chef, and my father was always in the kitchen creating new recipes,” said Alsip-Freeny, who earned a culinary arts and management degree from the Art Institute California-Los Angeles.

The classically trained chef has worked in prominent restaurants, hotels and country clubs in Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Hawaii, and catered for major sports teams, weddings and special events. She says she loves having multiple business concepts because each event is unique with complex menus and attention to detail.

Alsip-Freeny started Tailor Made Custom Catering in 2019, followed by Lilikoi Kitchen as a sidewalk cafe serving breakfast and lunch on Uluniu in 2023, and expanded with dinner service and a dine-in restaurant in Kailua Village Shops this year.

Lilikoi Kitchen is located at 539 Kailua Road, Suite 102, and is open daily from 9 a.m.-8 p.m. Visit lilikoikitchenhawaii.com or follow @lilikoikitchenhawaii on Instagram for more information.