FORKED UP

PESTO E SALSICCIA
BRICK FIRE TAVERN
16 N. Hotel St., Chinatown
Phone number (808) 369-2444
website brickfiretavern.com

A brand-new pizza joint always is worth checking out. Brick Fire Tavern offers Neapolitan-style pizza baked for just 90 seconds in a stone oven. The result is a pizza with a light, thin crust and big, chunky ingredients — that arrives at your table really, really fast. We loved this macadamia-nut pesto pizza, topped with Italian sausage, cherry tomatoes and mozzarella, but we’re also big fans of Brick Fire Tavern’s more eclectic offerings like The Real Hawaiian, which featured kalo, kalua pork, luau leaves and lomi tomatoes. If they just had some dipping sauce for the crust, we’d be set for life.

FALL RISOTTO
FÊTE
2 N. Hotel St., Chinatown
Phone number (808) 369-1390
website fetehawaii.com

Risotto can be a tricky dish to pull off — it’s no good too dry, but you don’t want it too rich with cream, either. Fête does it just right. The sauce is plentiful, without drowning out the flavors of the dish as a whole. It’s stocked with butternut squash, baby spinach and crispy sage, along with two types of cheese: Parmigiano-Reggiano and Pecorino Romano. You also can opt to add guanciale bacon for an additional $2, but we found that too salty.