Dondero’s

Solid menu, we enjoyed our entrees and appetizers. Reasonably priced for a date night in Kauai (meaning $ 40 entrees, but they’re tasty). The outdoor tables are lovely with a view of the gardens and the ocean in the distance. The hostess was wonderful, but our server left something to be desired. The restaurant seems to cater to an older crowd.

The Bolognese is absolutely delicious. I asked for it spicy and I have never had it as perfect as Chef Cary Roy prepared for us… Listening to Sinatra while having this incredible dish was what I would call… Paradise, in Poipu Kauai.

Italian place inside the Grand Hyatt with nice open air feel and a solid, if slightly offbeat Italian menu. The core menu was missing such staples as tomatoes/​mozzarella but several of the daily adds compensated for that. The carpaccio was good but needlessly swimming in pepper, the prosciutto melon was good but the melon had something funky done to it that seemed to rob it of flavor. The special calzone was just plain strange — kind of a very salty beef stroganoff meets calzone experience. It wasn’t bad but I’d have preferred a normal calzone greatly. The linguine was good. The ricotta donuts stole the show for dessert but require extra prep time so order a bit early if you want them. Overall good enough but not very.

Very disappointing. For a high end and expensive place, the food and the experience was just pub average. I had lobster and crab pasta for about $ 35 and it was bland. My Cesar salad was average, too. Plus the service was really terrible! Our server was running between way too many tables to give us any personal attention. When my husband used his napkin to stop the table from wobbling, he had to ask for a replacement 3 times. We had to wait for a 2^nd glass of wine because the bartender went home sick and nobody could find the wine we ordered. And it was a wine by the glass. This all speaks to very poor management. Maybe it was an off night, but there is no excuse. Don’t take a chance. Go elsewhere.

Yes, it truly was as good as it gets!
From the moment we walked into the restaurant we were greeted like family!
Excellent service and delicious food!

Food was uninspired, service was overwhelmed and distracted — it took us 30 minutes to get drinks and never got the focaccia we were told about. Everyone was nice enough and we liked the food, but it was on the boring side.

A perfect dinner! Reservations at 6PM opening and got a coveted table on the patio. Beautiful setting looking across flowering landscape to the ocean. Had wonderful prosciutto/​melon/​greens salad and terrific «grilled seafood cioppino.» Small half-​lobster, scallops, several large deep-​fried head-​on jumbo prawns (eat the whole thing!), and a nice chunk of fish in a balanced mellow tomato sauce/​broth that was just right… plus some small shell pasta. Great waiter (CoCo)…attentive and knowledgable and very friendly. An elegant but not stuffy dinner.

We stayed at the Grand Hyatt Resort & Spa and were invited here for dinner. We had a wonderful experience with the customer service and the overall food. It also has a beautiful view of the resort.
— Caesar salad: beautiful presentation and crispy salad
— Lobster & crab pasta: delicious pasta filled with crab and lobster tail
— pan roasted rib-​eye: the steak was thin and it required A1 sauce. A good steak should not require A1 sauce.
— Hazel nut candy bar with vanilla gelato: yummy but the chocolate was a little too rich so we could not finish it

Italian on a Hawaiian island? Not our first choice but only thing available for our Christmas Day dinner. I wish I could give them a higher rating but the food was mediocre. Chicken piccata was a hit but the Ono (fish of the day) was on the dry side. Recommendations: fried mozzarella and chicken piccata. The service and our waiter was excellent !

This restaurant rocks! Everything was amazing.
Makes my mouth water just thinking of it.
I had a three fish pasta dish to die for! Little leery at first cos lobster isn’t my favorite on the mainland BUT this chef knocked it outta the park! Never had lobster cooked this way n I’ll never forget it. The rest of the dish was equally stunning.
Kudos chef!!! Don’t miss this restaurant! Great view of beautiful grounds.

Pesto gnocchi was good, service was great.
Considering the price in Kauai, this place is not that bad.
I’d love to go back.

Beautiful patio seating! Service was remarkable, our server was so detailed in descriptions of food! Celebrating an event and our menu was printed with personalized message! Nice touch.
Had chicken piccata, so good, just delicious chicken no thick breading!
Crab, lobster pasta double yummy! Nice romantic setting, great service! Thanks Donderos!

Great service. Sit on the outdoor patio. Nice chicken picatta. Romance or fun — whatever the mood.

Excellent service, and wonderful food! My only complaint… other people who look like they just walked in from the pool to have dinner at Donderos, the only thing missing was their inner tubes and beach towels. It has the potential for having a wonderful ambience because of the killer views, but if there is no dress code, then it will look like a divey place to eat albeit very expensive.

We had a very inconsistent meal here. As a tourist, I wouldn’t recommend coming here unless you’re really craving non-​seafood/​Hawaiian food. At the end of the day, it’s just decent Italian food, and being from Chicago, I’ve had so much better. We started with the artichoke bruschetta which was probably the best thing I ate that night. It was delicious, refreshing, and balanced. Would highly recommend. Other appetizers we had were the calamari and the mushroom «neopolitan» pizza. Calamari was meh. A little on the chewy side, I’ve had better for sure. The pizza was tasty but not really neopolitan. It resembles more of a flatbread/​pizza hybrid. I won’t dwell too much because it did taste good, though not neopolitan as advertised.
For entrees, we had the shrimp scampi, ribeye, and lobster and crab pasta. Shrimp scampi was fine and the ribeye was very good. It was a well-​cooked steak and the sides were tasty. The lobster and crab pasta was yummy for a few bites but got very rich very fast. I would highly recommend a half portion of this entrée, because otherwise you may end up hating it by the end of the meal. It needed less sauce or something to cut the richness. Otherwise, it had a good amount of crab and lobster and the pasta was al dente. Tasted very good but it was just too rich. I also had a problem with the bacon ring garnish. It tasted like unfired ceramic pottery, kind of gross.
For dessert, we shared the special pineapple crêpe, the pineapple panna cotta, and the lemon ricotta doughnuts. I just have to put it out there, the pineapple crêpe was one of the worst desserts I’ve ever had, period. It wasn’t sweet at all and left a bitter aftertaste, presumably from the orange in the filling. I wonder how the pineapple wasn’t sweet though? Also, the crêpe was coated in some kind of crust that ruined it and defeated the purpose of a crêpe. Very disappointing, makes me wonder if the chefs even tasted it. The panna cotta was tasty, could have been richer, but good anyway. And lastly, the doughnuts were the best dessert, but when has a piece of fried dough ever not tasted good?
Overall, there were pros and cons to our meal but I wouldn’t come back. I’ve had much better Italian food.

I’m torn here. This place has a spectacular setting overlooking the ocean at Shipwreck’s beach. The food however, left much to be desired. There were some things that were good and some that were just terrible. Terrible food items usually rate 1 or two stars, but having a special setting, nice views and good service usually improve the overall star rating, hence 3 stars.
The good: Our appetizer of artichoke bruschetta was excellent. Fresh artichoke, white bean purée and burrata over perfectly toasted Itailian bread. Our meal was starting off really well.
The bad: Other appetizer of «Neopolitan» pizza was tasty enough but was it a «Neopolitan» pizza? NO! Our calamari fritti (fried calamari) was a terrible, overfried mess.
The good: Ribeye steak was prepared well and was paired nicely with a creamy mustard sauce, a demi-​glacé and prosciutto wrapped asparagus. Shrimp scampi over linguine was competently done.
The bad: The lobster and crab pasta with saffron marscapone sauce was rich but lacking balance so that the richness was too overpowering and by 4 – 5 bites, it stopped being enjoyable.
The good: The café Dondero’s was a nice way to finish the meal; espresso with amaretto and whipped cream — nicely alcoholic like me ;-)
The bad: Special-​of-​the-​day pineapple crepes were bad, really bad. Not sweet, too bitter, and where’s the pineapple? Our other desserts were also just meh — coconut panna cotta was too thin and lacked proper texture.
Overall: 3 stars. Come for Italian classics in a beautiful setting. Just don’t expect too much from the food.

This is not my first time to Dondero’s, but we don’t get here often! Partly because they are in the Grand Hyatt hotel and partly because it can get expensive!
We went for Mother’s Day and had a party of 9 plus a high chair and we were able to get the 6:00 reservation!
The view is absolutely gorgeous, even from the middle and not a window seat all you can see is Palm trees and ocean and landscape.
The waitstaff are very friendly and know the menu well! For Mother’s Day there were roses given out to all the mothers in our group, very sweet!
They start off with focaccia bread and oil and vinegar at your table, so Ono! Especially when Eric brought around fresh Parmesan to dip it in!
Calamari was delicious, great seasoning, not chewy, and good dipping sauce! The artichoke bruschetta was also amazing, the currants really added a pop of flavor!
Our table ordered a couple beet salads which were served with giant slices of goat cheese! Not sure why they had the rinds left on, I guess it makes it fancier.
I had the artichoke pizza which was the best! Too bad I had already eaten so much and could only finish half! It was still good reheated the next day! The wife had crab and lobster pasta, rich but really good as well! Two people had the spaghetti and meatball (which is one giant meatball with a mix of beef, veal, and pork) and both agreed it was salty. The mushroom and duck risotto was the tables favorite!
Desserts, I loved the pana cotta, but I really don’t get popcorn on top of desserts. The gelato was delish and I recommend the toasted banana and the rich chocolate!
All in all great service and worth the price!

The girlfriend and I decided to try Dondero’s during our stay at the Grand Hyatt since going out to a restaurant is a little bit of a hassle due to the Grand Hyatt being isolated.
The interior I will say needs some updating. It looks outdated and cheesy.
We shared a Caesar Salad which tasted like any other Caesar Salad. I ordered the Pasta Bolognese. The meat was flavorful but the pasta itself was a little tough and chewy. It seemed as if they didn’t boil the pasta in water long enough. My Girlfriend ordered the Lobster & Crab pasta and she did not enjoy it. She said Olive Garden could have done better.
The service was terrible. Our waiter did not check up on us at all. For example. we had to call a busboy to help refill our water. For the price, this is NOT WORTH IT. (Very below average Italian restaurant. Maggiano’s blows this place out of the water)
The food and service was so bad… which was surprising since we expected the food at the «Grand Hyatt» to at least be decent. Don’t eat here!

Sit outside if you get the chance, the inside needs updating.
The lemon shrimp pasta was really good, but the 3 other people were not impressed with their dinners.
Avoid buying a cocktail as mine was $ 14.00 and it was half a martini glass. I ended up leaving feeling cheated.

We had a party of seven and EVERYONE loved the food. We shared appetizers and salads which included bruschetta, ahi carpaccio, Caesar salad and the beet salad. Oh, the beet salad… red and golden beets, raspberries, arugula, and 2 generous slices of Humboldt Fog. For those of you that aren’t familiar with this delectable cheese, just bow your heads. Mmmmmmmm.
Notable entrees consisted of lobster and crab pasta, cioppino and filet mignon. But wait, there’s more… dessert! If I could eat the lemon ricotta doughnuts everyday, I would be the happiest lil chubber alive. My date had the flourless chocolate cake which was a lil too rich for me, but perfect for a choco-​lover. They serve many flavors of gelato. All of which were beyond amazing.
Our server, Koko was amazing. Very patient, gave excellent recommendations and his attention to detail was spot on.
With 3 days left in Kauai, I plan to hit Dondero’s again… tonight, and hopefully again after that.