Wednesday, June 1, 7:00 pm
Members $100, guests $125

Paul Gauguin’s time on the Pacific island of Tahiti inspired the French painter to create some of his most famous and distinctive works, including Arearea and Femmes de Tahiti. French chef Jean-Marie Josselin has been similarly inspired by the more than 20 years he has spent on the Pacific islands of Hawaii, and he pays homage to them with his mainland restaurant, 808, at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.

At 808, named for Hawaii’s area code, Josselin’s menu of Hawaiian regional cuisine is accented with touches from Europe, the Far East, and Southeast Asia, transporting diners far from the bright lights of Sin City. The menu features the freshest fish flown in from the Aloha State—including striped marlin, onaga, and Hawaii’s state fish, opakapaka—as well as island fruits like coconut, guava, and passion fruit.

The eatery has earned praise since it opened its doors in 2000. Food & Wine writer Max Jacobson featured it as one of the city’s best new restaurants in an article on Las Vegas, and Renee Kientz of the Houston Chronicle wrote that 808’s “menu and restaurant both buzz with energy; 808 feels young but not trendy, just creative and fresh.” Praising Josselin as “the founder of today’s Hawaiian regional cuisine movement,” Gayot.com singled out Josselin’s riff on the bento box, which features a kalua pork potsticker, a deconstructed ahi roll with avocado salad and white truffle dressing, and dayboat scallops. The website also praised the “sublime” sesame-crusted mahi mahi with lime-ginger beurre blanc, one of the chef’s signature dishes.

Josselin has been perfecting his Hawaiian regional cuisine since he moved to the island of Maui in 1985 to work at the acclaimed Hotel Hana-Maui. A native of Chamonix, France, Josselin trained at the Mederic Culinary School in Paris and worked at fine restaurants and hotels throughout Europe and the mainland United States before heading to Hawaii. He eventually took a post at the Coco Palms Resort on Kauai, where he opened A Pacific Cafe in Kapaa in 1989. He quickly attracted critical acclaim and was nominated for a James Beard Foundation award for Best Chef: Pacific/Northwest. Although closed briefly, the restaurant is scheduled to reopen this year. Josselin is also the author of A Taste of Hawaii, a cookbook celebrating the bounty of his island paradise, and he was the host of a television series of the same name.