Seven pantry staples that taste like home— wherever home is.
There's a certain kind of cooking that doesn't follow a recipe. It follows a pantry.
If you've spent time in Hawaii — or grown up here, or simply fallen in love with the flavors over years of visits — you know what we mean. The right hot sauce on the counter. A jar of honey that smells like flowers you can't find anywhere else. Coffee that was roasted on the slopes of a volcano and somehow tastes like it.
These aren't luxury items. They're the things a Hawaii kitchen just has. And once you've cooked with them, mainland substitutes never quite measure up.
Here are eight things we think belong in every Hawaii-loving pantry — whether you're in Kaimukī, Kailua, Marin County, or the Upper West Side.
Photo from Chef Sheldon Simeon's "Ohana Style" Cookbook.
A salt that comes from 2,200 feet below the ocean
Sea Salts of Hawaiʻi is one of the only working salt farms in the state, harvesting by hand from deep ocean water drawn up from 2,200 feet below the surface of the Kona Coast — ancient water, rich in minerals, with a flavor that no supermarket salt can replicate. Their ʻAlaea variety gets its deep red color from volcanic clay. Their Uahi is finished with activated charcoal. Each one is distinct, and each one has a story. A gift of salt in Hawaiian culture is a symbol of aloha — the wish to preserve and strengthen a relationship. We love that.
Spices made with aloha on the west side of Kauaʻi
Aloha Spice Company is tucked into the tiny town of Hanapepe on Kauaʻi — and if you've ever driven the west side, you know that everything out there feels a little more unhurried, a little more real. Led by chef and entrepreneur Keiko Napier, Aloha Spice makes small-batch seasonings, rubs, and salt blends using Hawaiian chilis, kiawe wood, guava, and organic herbs. Their Hanapepe Smokey Coffee Rub has become something people order year after year from the mainland and never stop talking about. Once you've used it on grilled chicken or salmon, you'll understand.
A honey that actually tastes like Hawaii
Lehua blossom honey comes from bees that feed on the ʻōhiʻa lehua tree — found only in Hawaii. The flavor is lighter and more floral than anything you'll find at a grocery store, and it's extraordinary on toast, in tea, or drizzled over fresh fruit. Wai Meli harvests theirs raw and unfiltered on the Big Island, which means nothing is lost between the flower and the jar.
Hot sauce worth putting on everything
Hawaii has its own hot sauce culture — and it has nothing to do with the mass-market bottles at the back of your fridge. HI Spice was founded right here in Honolulu, and their sauces use local peppers and lilikoi (passion fruit) in ways that are bright, complex, and genuinely addictive. Once you've had it on eggs in the morning, you won't go back.
Coffee that earns its reputation
Kona coffee is one of the most imitated origins in the world — and one of the most watered-down on grocery store shelves. Big Island Coffee Roasters does it properly: 100% Kona-grown, small-lot, roasted to order. The Peaberry is their most distinctive offering — a naturally occurring single-bean cherry with a sweeter, more concentrated flavor. It makes the morning ritual feel intentional again.
Chocolate that tastes like the islands grew it
Mānoa Chocolate grows and processes cacao on Oʻahu — one of the very few bean-to-bar makers in all of Hawaii. Their Kope x Coffee bar weaves locally sourced Hawaiian coffee into 60% dark milk chocolate with crunchy cacao nibs — a bar that somehow manages to taste like a morning in the islands and a slow evening at once. Coffee has grown in Hawaiʻi since the mid-1800s, and the islands now have more farms growing it than any other crop. This bar is a quiet celebration of that.
Something from the North Shore for your morning toast
Kahuku Farms grows açaí, lilikoi, dragonfruit, and coconut on Oʻahu's North Shore — and their jams and spreads bring all of it to the table. A jar of their lilikoi butter on a Saturday morning is a small, unhurried act of joy. The kind that makes you slow down a little. Which is exactly what Hawaii has always been good at teaching us.
The cookbook that teaches you what to do with all of it
Once you've stocked your pantry with Hawaii's best, you'll want to know what to cook. Cook Real Hawaiʻi by Sheldon Simeon — a two-time Top Chef finalist and Fan Favorite — is built around the local Hawaii food that feeds his ʻohana: his family and neighbors. With uncomplicated, flavor-forward recipes, he traces the many cultures that created the cuisine of his beloved home — native Hawaiian traditions, Japanese influences, Chinese cooking techniques, and the Korean, Portuguese, and Filipino flavors closest to his heart. This is not a restaurant cookbook. It's a home cookbook, written for people who want to cook the way Hawaii actually eats. Named one of the ten best cookbooks of the year by The New Yorker and The New York Times, it belongs on every Hawaii-loving kitchen shelf.
House of Mana Up
Every product in this guide is available at our two Hawaii locations — Ward Village in Kaka'ako and the Royal Hawaiian Center in Waikīkī — or online anytime at HouseofManaUp.com, shipped anywhere in the US. If you're visiting the islands, come see us in person. If home is somewhere else right now, we'll bring a little of Hawaii to you.
Visit One of Our Stores
Ward Village · 1170 Auahi St, Honolulu, HI 96814
Royal Hawaiian Center · 2201 Kalākaua Ave, Honolulu, HI 96815
