I had a woman stop me on the street and say “you’re chef Kevin, you did a dinner for my family and I, for my daughter’s birthday a few years ago, and we still talk about that dinner now” – and I thought “that’s what we do, we create memories, and it’s beautiful!”
—Chef Kevin Bell
Maui’s best
Over the years, I’ve assembled an amazing team of chefs and servers who have bought in to my vision, and they help me deliver my service to an ever increasing clientele.
One of my teachers, Jacques Pepin once said something to me at the Institute of Culinary Education in Manhattan a few years back, which has stuck with me to this day, “If you have great ingredients, why try and screw them up by making them something else?”
I’ve always taken that to heart and made it the cornerstone of my cooking ethos – if you’ve already got great ingredients, then the food already has amazing flavor.
It’s been some journey arriving here, and I’ve been fortunate along the way to have received the training I got from some of the worlds’ leading chefs. The French Culinary Institute is one of the most highly respected culinary schools in the world, so to graduate from there was a real honor and gave me an unbelievable education. But that was only the start. While studying there, I decided to supplement my education by working at Michelin star restaurants like Danny Meyer’s Gramercy Tavern.
I would wake up at 4am, catch the train at 5am, be at Gramercy’s by 6am, work ‘til 4pm, I’d go to school between 5-10pm, catch the train home at 11pm and then be home before midnight only to do it all over again the next day. I’d then cook at home in my spare time, or I’d take the train to the city and walk around and stare at menus in the windows as I couldn’t afford to eat at those fancy restaurants.
I worked at celebrity chef Dan Barbers’ Blue Hills in New York. My first night there he had me help him carry pork and venison carcasses through the dining room, which I thought was pretty cool…and unusual at the same time.
I remember being really nervous at Eleven Madison Avenue, while Daniel Humm stood and watched me try and cut a red onion in a perfect bruinoise, though my hands were shaking like crazy… I told him I couldn’t do it, and he said “relax, and just make it nice.”
I also worked at NYC’s best Italian restaurant, Del Posto, which sadly closed due to the pandemic, but I’ve never tasted food like it!
I’ve always had a talent for food though, even before training with elite chefs—
I had an award-winning food truck, which was featured in the book by Karen Brooks – The Mighty Gastropolis. My big break however, came when I moved to Napa Valley and took a job at Thomas Keller’s Bouchon Bistro. He’d always been my hero, and I even had a cookbook signed by him which I got years earlier, and now I was cooking food at his restaurant. I remember him complimenting me for the very first time and it was such an emotional experience, one that has lasted with me until this day.
While food is the centerpiece of everything I do, I realized that helping someone experience magical moments, was more important, so that became the philosophy behind Soigne.
And it’s why we’re different from anyone else – we create memories that last a lifetime.
