Pork (sometimes butterfish or chicken) wrapped in taro leaves and ti leaves, steamed for hours until the leaves are tender and the meat falls apart. Earthy, salty, the canonical luau small plate.

Laulau is pre-contact Hawaiian. The traditional dish wrapped pork, salt, and sometimes butterfish in luau (kalo) leaves, then in ti leaves, and steamed it in the imu underground oven alongside the kalua pig. The luau leaves cook into a spinach-like wrap and the wrap absorbs the smoke. Highway Inn Kakaako and Helena's Hawaiian Food both run canonical laulau plates with butterfish and pork. Modern home cooks steam them in a stove-top pot rather than the imu; the result is similar though missing the smoke notes.

2 editor picks for Laulau in Honolulu, ranked by editorial score. All Honolulu signature dishes · Laulau across every city.

Learn to cook it, or eat it with a guide

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