Burgers made completely from scratch with specifically sourced, organic ingredients sounds like a simple enough idea, but few have the stamina, like Pono Burger’s Chef Makani Gerardi, to see this concept through so completely — especially when the concept is spread across two restaurants with an ocean between them.
With one foot planted firmly in Hawaii, where Gerardi owns Ultimate Burger, and the other in Santa Monica with Pono, Gerardi is a Big Island native who keeps it 100 percent real, from ketchup to buns. Gerardi first came to appreciate food and diversity at an early age.
“Cooking was survival,” she says. “My father is Hawaiian-Basque and my mother Japanese. The pantry wasn’t normal American or normal Hawaiian either.”
With no intention of ever living in Los Angeles (“I don’t do L.A.,” she says she thought), Gerardi surprised herself by falling in love with the city. “I found my tribe here. I spend most of my time on my paddle board with the dolphins and seals.”