Q&A with Executive Chef Justin Kalaluhi
For Chef Justin Kalaluhi, cooking has always been rooted in place. Raised on Kauaʻi, where childhood summers meant gathering around open fires and preparing meals at the beach, he learned early on that food has a way of connecting people to memories, traditions and one another. Today, in the mountains of Aspen, that same philosophy takes on a new landscape.
Inspired by the Rocky Mountains, the changing seasons and the ingredients growing just beyond the kitchen, Chef Justin keeps his approach simple: let the ingredients speak, then give them room to shine. As he looks toward the heartier flavors of fall and winter, he shares the inspiration shaping his menus at West End Social.
How did you get started in the culinary industry?
How I got started with cooking was, we camped every summer growing up as a kid, so I was always intrigued by fires. And our campsites would have four 20x20 tents, bunch of woks all lined up, and frying fish, cooking fried rice, making home meals at a beach, and I was captivated and I went to culinary school.
Being a Hawaii boy from Kauaʻi, I got my start with A Pacific Café, a Chef Jean-Marie Josselin restaurant. He opened in Las Vegas and my career just blossomed from there.
I love cooking and making memories with people, bringing them back to their childhood, just like Ratatouille.
How does the surrounding landscape inspire the menus you create?
An opportunity came up here in Aspen and I previously lived in Vale for 10 years. I did leave the mountains for 10 years, I've been traveling around, and I always wanted to come back to the Rocky Mountains. Waking up in the mornings, no matter what kind of day you are having, you can take a walk in the woods, look at this view, and get reinspired.
For me, cooking is simple, I like to let the ingredients speak for themselves, and then, just add complements to help enhance the flavor of the things. So being up here in the Rocky Mountains, I'm looking forward to using all the fresh produce up in Palisades, some of their wines, peaches, and all the wildlife that we have up here.
Thanks to our landscaping team here on property, we do have some rosemary, thyme, and chai blossoms growing in our garden. Every day at 5:30pm we go out there to pick some fresh herbs for the garnish on the plates.
What can guests can look forward to seeing featured on upcoming winter menus?
As we gear up for winter, we're excited because in the kitchen we get to do some heartier dishes, braised items, and we look forward to the new oxtail soup coming on the menu soon. I'm going to do a little play on Pho, and it's going to be my version, back home in Hawaii, we grew up eating this, so it'll be ginger, scallions, cilantro, a little bit of hoisin in there, and a little oxtail terrine. To start, we will make the broth which will take about six hours. After, we’ll braise the oxtail, pull the meat apart and then make a little terrine with it. Normally we would boil the broth for 24 hours and then you just get an intense flavor from all the ingredients, but I don’t want to take out all the flavor from the oxtail because we are just going to put the meat back into the soup.