Sam Choy is an American chef, restaurateur, cookbook author, and television personality from Laie, Hawaii. He helped establish Hawaii Regional Cuisine, popularized island-style cooking and poke, and built a career through restaurants, cookbooks, television programs, culinary education, and food businesses in Hawaii and the Pacific Northwest.
Background
Sam Choy was born on January 27, 1952, in Laie on Oahu's North Shore. His father, Hung Sam Choy, was of Chinese ancestry, and his mother, Clairemoana, was of Hawaiian and German ancestry. The family prepared large luaus and community gatherings, giving Choy early experience with Hawaiian, Chinese, and other Pacific food traditions.
Choy grew up in a small North Shore community where local seafood, garden produce, and neighborhood cooking shaped the food culture around him. His later culinary style drew on this multicultural environment and on the combination of Asian, Polynesian, and Western influences that characterize Hawaii's modern food history.
Education
Choy studied culinary arts through the Kapiolani Community College Culinary Arts program and is also associated with the University of Hawaii. Kapiolani Community College, founded in 1946 and later incorporated into the University of Hawaii Community Colleges system, developed career-oriented programs serving Hawaii's hospitality and food-service industries.
His culinary training preceded professional work in major hotel kitchens on Oahu, in New York City, and on Hawaii Island. The University of Hawaii is the state's public higher-education system and has long supported instruction and professional development connected with Hawaii's distinctive cultural, agricultural, and hospitality industries.
Career
Choy began his professional career in hotel kitchens on Oahu, working at Kuilima Resort, later associated with the Turtle Bay property on the North Shore. He subsequently worked at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City, where he gained experience in a major American hotel kitchen before returning to Hawaii.
From the mid-1980s through 1991, Choy worked at the Kona Hilton in Kailua-Kona, eventually serving as executive chef. Large resort hotels such as the Kona Hilton were important settings for the development of Hawaii's modern visitor industry, bringing together international hotel standards and the islands' local ingredients and culinary traditions.
In 1991, Choy opened his own restaurant in the Kaloko area of Kailua-Kona. The restaurant, later known as Sam Choy's Kaloko, became associated with Hawaii Regional Cuisine and was named a James Beard Foundation America's Classic in 2004. Choy also developed or operated other food businesses, including Huki Lau Cafe, Sam Choy's Breakfast, Lunch, and Crab, Sam Choy's in Tumon Bay, Sam Choy's Kai Lanai on Hawaii Island, and Sam Choy's Poke to the Max in the Pacific Northwest.
Choy was one of the chefs associated with the founding of Hawaii Regional Cuisine in the early 1990s. The movement emphasized Hawaii-grown products and combined local traditions with culinary techniques and flavors brought by the islands' Native Hawaiian, Asian, Polynesian, and immigrant communities. His cooking helped bring island-style dishes, especially poke and other seafood preparations, to wider American audiences.
Choy has also worked in television and food media. He appeared on programs including Ready. Set. Cook!, Iron Chef America, and other culinary broadcasts, and later hosted Sam Choy's Kitchen on KHNL. In March 2016, Sam Choy's in the Kitchen began airing on Khon2, featuring home cooking and improvised recipes prepared with families and community guests. He has also created online cooking content and culinary demonstrations.
Beyond restaurant work, Choy has taught or instructed through the University of Hawaii and Kapiolani Community College, designed Hawaiian-inspired dishes for airline service, and participated in food festivals and community culinary events. His professional activities have connected restaurant entrepreneurship, culinary education, television, cookbook writing, and the promotion of Hawaii's regional food culture.
Views
Choy's culinary philosophy emphasizes fresh local ingredients, cultural mixture, improvisation, and food prepared for communal enjoyment. He has described Hawaii Regional Cuisine as a meeting of Eastern and Western influences within the islands' multicultural food traditions.
Personality
Published profiles describe Choy as warm, generous, energetic, and strongly associated with Hawaii's welcoming aloha spirit. His public culinary work emphasizes hospitality, abundance, improvisation, and the communal character of island cooking.
Quotes from others about the person
Hawaii culinary profiles have described Choy as a culinary ambassador for the islands and as a leading popularizer of Hawaii's regional cuisine and poke.
Connections
Choy is married and has two sons. His family background includes a Chinese father and a mother of Hawaiian and German ancestry, linking his culinary identity to several of the cultural traditions that shaped Hawaii's foodways.
Choy has maintained a documented friendship with chef and television personality Emeril Lagasse, who appeared on Sam Choy's Kitchen and mentioned Choy's cooking in television appearances.
