REVIEW: Makahiki Dinner at Disney’s Aulani Resort

Looking for a relaxing, yet elevated vibe alternative to a generic steakhouse while on vacation at Disney’s Hawaiian resort? Look no further than Makahiki!

We’ve been exploring the natural wonder of Aulani, a Disney Resort & Spa and we love how connected the hotel feels to the island and Hawaiian culture. So, what better way to really keep that connection going than through the gift of food? Let’s check out one of Aulani’s most scenic restaurants for dinner.

It’s time to explore what dinner is like at Makahiki – The Bounty of the Islands. While characters can be found during the breakfast mealtime here, at night it transforms into an upscale, elevated restaurant. The theme of the harvest of Makahiki invites you in with all of the artwork lining the walls of the restaurant and adorning the glass fixture in the ceiling. The service here is incredible — truly an incredible experience that reminded us of a mixture of very relaxed, yet exceedingly hospitable vibes.

You can’t make a bad choice between choosing to dine inside or out, but you might find there’s more lighting by dining inside if you prefer it. The courses are brought out to your pace and the restaurant certainly maintains the same open-air feel to it that we’ve found throughout Aulani.

Background

When you step inside Makahiki, you’re stepping inside a festive, family-friendly restaurant. The theme here is inspired by the Makahiki season—the traditional Hawaiian celebration of the harvest. Here, you’ll find all of the nods and details throughout the restaurant that tells the Makahiki story through its food, local artwork, intricate stained glass, jewel-toned mural,s and dramatic lighting.

You can choose your seating between dining indoors amid artful déco or you can dine al fresco on the lovely lanai overlooking a koi pond.

Atmosphere

Food & Drinks

The menu here is made up of several options filling out a 3-course dinner. Adult prices for dinner are $77. From the menu, your meal allows for one starter…

…one entrée…

…and one dessert.

After taking a few minutes to review our options we made our selections and placed our order with our server.

We picked up a few drinks with our dinner starting with the Kona Lombard Lager for $19.

This is a well-known Kona Island lager beer that doubles as a crowd-pleaser. It’s definitely on the lighter side but nothing special to the restaurant because it can be picked up at several places.

We also grabbed the Mango Mojito for $16.

This one leans toward the acidic, zingy, fruity side. There’s a ton of mango flavor to this one and we found it to be a nice, well-rounded drink to have.

We started off our meal with the Caesar Salad made of hearts of romaine, herbed croutons, house-made Caesar dressing, and Reggiano parmesan. 

This was a huge portion and was filled with super crisp, cold lettuce, topped with high-quality dressing and croutons. If you added a meat to this it could easily be an entree portion salad, all of the lettuce to dressing and croton portion ratio was well thought out.

Roasted Tomato Soup was a great way to start off this meal! This dish was a huge bowl of hamakua tomatoes, basil, and evoo, soup served with sourdough fontina melt.

It was served in more of a true bowl than a cup size. It also came with 3 cuts of grilled cheese of the sourdough fontina melt which really beefed up its filling portion. We thought the soup was very creamy and savory and even tasted some basil notes to it. But, be warned — this is A LOT of soup to this as a starter!

For our entrees, we started with the House-Smoked Atlantic Salmon. This dish of salmon served with applewood smoked bacon, marble potato salad, roasted asparagus, maitake mushrooms, and lemon-dill cream, was very rich.

The salmon was so tasty since it was buttery, warm, and well-cooked, but when we got the creamy sauce with our bites it made the meal so rich. The accompaniments were served on the side and we loved the presentation of how this dish was presented.  Admittedly though, having such a filling meal after a hefty portion of soup and salad could have been a little too much to eat all at once.

Then we moved on to the 8oz Filet Migon which is served with whipped potatoes, broccolini, shallot confit, bordelaise sauce, and bleu cheese butter.

We thought our filet was a tad overcooked, with the exception of the center. I didn’t have that “cut through it easily” feel to it like we’re used to with a filet so they may have just gone a little too far on it. The rub and seasoning flavor on it was great, though. We really picked up on the peppery notes of the meat. As for its accompaniments, the broccolini was a bit stiff in the stem but well-cooked for the most part, and the mashed potatoes were a little disappointing.

Even though they were whipped, the texture took us back a bit because still had peaks to it when we scooped it on our utensils and became more of a potato paste when they cooled.

We ended up trying out all three of the desserts starting with the Roasted Pineapple Cobbler.

This dessert was made of macadamia nut cinnamon streusel and topped with a scoop of haupia gelato. As you probably can imagine, it was very sweet, and we likened its taste to a delicious warm fruity apple pie with a scoop of ice cream on top — maybe just a tad sweeter though. This is definitely one you want to get if you’re an apple pie eater or just really gravitate towards fruit options for desserts.

The Warm Chocolate Toffee Brownie was pretty straightforward. Although it is simple and made of only brownie brittle and topped with vanilla ice cream, it was a superior dessert!

We even thought someone who’s not big on chocolatey treats but would enjoy those really rich flavors of toffee would enjoy this as a nice close to their meal.

The Kona Coffee Cheesecake was the last to try. It’s made of Oreo cookie crust, whipped cream, and toffee sauce but it is VERY coffee-forward. If you’re not big into coffee smells and flavors you’ll probably want to avoid this one.

The cheesecake was creamy in a way like a dairy cream is but just really heavy as a dessert.  As a side note, these desserts aren’t exclusive to the restaurant so if you find something you liked and want to repeat it or skip on the prix fixe meal, you can get all three desserts in Ulu Lounge.

Magic Or Tragic?

This restaurant is a total MAGIC for anyone who:

• Loves a filling prix fixe meal
• Is willing to pay a little more for the atmosphere of a table service restaurant over seating at a lounge
• Really appreciates big-portioned meals

This might be more of a Tragic for anyone who:

• Isn’t into eating HUGE meals in one sitting
• Would prefer to get the highlights of this meal elsewhere like a lounge or another restaurant
• Price is a big factor for you

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FULL TOUR: Standard Garden View Room at Disney’s Aulani Resort

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Which of these dishes would you try first? Tell us in the comments below!