Hy’s Steak House

Who Should Book Hy's Steak House; and When

Hy's Steak House on Kūhiō Avenue is the right call for food-focused travelers who want a serious steakhouse dinner in Honolulu without the tourist-trap energy. If your evening calls for a proper, table-cloth-and-fire steak experience; the kind with carved tableside service and a wine list that earned a Star Wine List White Star recognition, Hy's delivers that format more convincingly than most of what Waikīkī offers. It is particularly well-suited to couples marking an occasion, solo diners who want a confident, structured meal, food enthusiasts who track rankings: Hy's appeared on the Opinionated About Dining Casual North America list at #113 in 2023 and climbed the following year to #154 in 2024, a sign that it holds its position in a competitive category rather than fading. The kitchen is open every night from 5 to 9 PM, which makes it a reliable option year-round, but the sweet spot is early in the week, when the dining room is less pressed and service has more room to breathe.

What Hy's Does in the Kitchen

Hy's is a steakhouse, which means the technical measure of its kitchen is how it handles beef: the sear, the resting, the consistency across a full service. The OAD Casual ranking, which aggregates opinions from serious eaters rather than general crowds, positions Hy's above the noise of resort dining and places it in conversation with focused, craft-driven operations across the continent. That kind of recognition does not accrue to a venue running on reputation alone. The Star Wine List White Star, published August 2022, adds a second independent data point: the wine program has been assessed and found serious, which matters if you are someone who thinks about what goes in the glass as carefully as what goes on the plate.For context on what fine-dining ambition looks like elsewhere in the U.S. see The French Laundry in Napa or Le Bernardin in New York City, Hy's plays a different, more accessible game, it plays it well.

Booking, Timing, Practical Notes

Booking difficulty is rated easy. Hy's takes reservations and does not operate with the weeks-out lead time you would need for high-demand tasting-menu counters like Atomix in New York or Lazy Bear in San Francisco. Given the 5–9 PM hours every night of the week, you have flexibility to plan same-week. The early window, a 5 or 5:30 PM reservation, tends to be the practical choice if you want attentive service and a calmer room; Waikīkī foot traffic picks up as the evening progresses and restaurant floors get louder. Chef Brandon Bernal leads the kitchen. Dress code and exact pricing are not confirmed in the public record, but for a venue at this address and recognition level, smart-casual is the reasonable baseline assumption. The address is 2440 Kūhiō Ave. walkable from most Waikīkī hotels, which removes any transportation friction for visitors staying in the area.

Pearl Ratings

• Food quality: OAD Casual North America ranked (#113 in 2023, #154 in 2024), tracked and credentialed
• Wine program: Star Wine List White Star (2022), independently assessed
• Booking difficulty: Easy
• Leading for: Occasion dinners, solo food enthusiasts, couples, wine-focused guests

How It Compares

See the full comparison below. For broader context on where to eat and stay in the city, browse our full Honolulu restaurants guide, our Honolulu hotels guide, our Honolulu bars guide, our Honolulu wineries guide, and our Honolulu experiences guide.

Pearl Picks Nearby

• Fête, New American; a strong alternative if you want a less traditional format
• Arancino at The Kahala, Italian; worth considering for a hotel-dining experience with different cuisine
• Bar Maze, Cocktail Bar-Omakase; for a very different evening, this is the counter-driven alternative
• Fujiyama Texas, Japanese; a flavor-forward contrast to the steakhouse format
• Ginza Bairin, Japanese; if you want a precise, focused kitchen in a different tradition