Ceci N’est Pas Banana Bread
This is not banana bread.
This is Banana Bread Art, by the obsessed mastermind of Diamond Head Market, Kelvin Ro.
Named by Esquire magazine last December as one of “100 Restaurants America Can’t Afford to Lose,” Diamond Head Market & Grill on Monsarrat Avenue has made it through the dark days of last winter. But nothing can be taken for granted in these times when, with the finish line in sight, many businesses are flailing. Particularly in a state that likes to honor its dead local institutions more than patronize them when alive (see Love’s Bakery, town, Alan Wong’s).
DHG isn’t flailing, yet. Feeling the pinch? Who isn’t? But with breakfast service recently closed on weekdays, we’re not taking any chances. So we’re going to focus on an almost nondescript item—chef-owner Kelvin Ro’s banana bread, a personal touchstone—to convey the spirit and passion that underlies the Market and next-door Grill’s offerings.
Most people only see the slices of banana bread at Diamond Head Market. Unlike the colorful cakes, tortes and cheesecakes on display, they don't shout out their presence at the gourmet takeaway and bakery shop at the corner of Monserrat Avenue and Campbell Avenue. But the fact that they rate a double row in the rack by the register should tell you something: These are movers. Steady sellers. Heady sellers. Each $3 slice is surprisingly dense, solid, heavy with dark banana essence, yet not overpowering or too sweet.
“This recipe has been massaged and perfected over the 20 years that we have been open,” says Ro, the market’s founder, master baker and chef d’cuisine—and the main fundraiser for the first-stage construction of the Culinary Institute of the Pacific up the street and across from Kapi‘olani Community College.
“Our bread is moist, has a balance of a sweetness from using overripe bananas without being too sweet,” Ro says. “And we have it all the time for customer convenience; where else do you go to buy good banana bread?”
Ro achieves the intense banana flavor, delicate texture and cake-like crumble by whipping the eggs, letting the batter rise for an hour and using a larger cake pan. The bread bakes for two and a half hours, which Ro has divided into three phases: 325 degrees for an hour, then 300 degrees for an hour, then 275 degrees for half an hour. “It takes that long to cook through the middle and we check with a toothpick to make sure its dry and the crumble is right.”
Slices come from loaves, as we all know. If one’s not out in front, ask if you can buy an entire loaf. At roughly two pounds, it will surprise you with its heaviness, but deliver lighter, brighter mornings and tea-times. "We have people who buy several at one time,” says the woman manning the register. “One customer who flies for the airlines buys five for when he goes to the Mainland." That's some serious banana baggage.
Diamond Head Market and Grill
3158 Monsarrat Avenue, 808-732-0077
diamondheadmarket.com, @diamondheadmarketandgrill
(ask for the banana bread—$3 slice, $24 loaf)
Images by Luis Quintero and Don Wallace.
Don Wallace is the editor of The Hawai‘i Review of Books. He has written for Harper’s, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Surfer’s Journal, HONOLULU Magazine, Fast Company, and other publications. His last book was The French House: An American Family, a Ruined Maison, and the Village that Restored Them All (Sourcebooks, 2014).
Wallace wrote the documentary film Those Who Came Before: The Musical Journey of Eddie Kamae and was awarded the 2020 Lorretta J. Petrie Award for outstanding service to Hawai‘i’s literature and the 2019 award from the Society of Professional Journalists Hawai‘i chapter for best Body of Work by a writer. A McDowell Colony Fellow, he won the Pluma de Plata Mexicana for reporting on Mexico, a Copernicus Society award for a novel in progress, and the Next Stop Hollywood short story contest. In 2018, he organized a poll of 70 Hawai‘i writers, editor, booksellers, scholars, and others to vote on Hawai‘i’s 50 Essential Books, which he then wrote up for HONOLULU Magazine. He followed up with a Roll of Honor of the next 37 books.
