chef-name: Amy Ferguson-Ota

Chef Amy Ferguson is the real deal. She stands shoulder to shoulder with Hawaii’s most celebrated chefs as a founding member of the Hawaii Regional Cuisine movement and stands apart as an internationally recognized Chef. Her passion, innovation and willingness to go the extra mile elevate her catered events to the highest levels.

Amy came to Hawaii from Texas in 1985, as the first Food & Beverage Director for the Kona Village Resort. In 1987, Amy returned to Dallas, Texas to open Baby Routh, a 200-seat Southwestern style restaurant with wood burning grills and rotisseries for chef Stephan Pyles. In the November of 1987 issue of Metropolitan Home, Amy was noted as one of the “creators of the new Southwestern cuisine” along with such noted chefs a Dean Fearing, Stephan Pyles, Mark Miller and Robert Del Grande. The same year Baby Routh was named the #1 ranked restaurant in the U.S. by Esquire magazine.

Upon returning to Hawaii, Amy became executive chef at Rosewood’s premier five star resort, Hotel Hana-Maui, where she not only gave birth to her son Nicholas, but also helped in the rearing of Hawaii Regional Cuisine. She was the first woman to achieve Executive Chef status in the Rosewood Corporation, and a few years later became the first women Executive Chef at Ritz-Carlton Mauna Lani. She was the first woman to hold the culinary reins of any major luxury resort in the U.S. She has been instrumental in advancing Hawaii Regional Cuisine. Appearing regularly on network television, she has also been featured in dozens of cookbooks. Chef Amy Ferguson is featured in Julia Child’s “Cooking with Master Chefs” series and is a James Beard award nominee.

From 1997 – 2009 Amy conceptualized and opened three amazing restaurants including Oodles of Noodles, featuring noodle dishes from around the world, Paradise Pizza featuring handcrafted pizzas with 5 different hand spun doughs, 105 of the finest toppings known to man, and handmade cheese from famed Texas cheesemaker Paula Lambert’s, “The Mozzarella Company.” O’s Bistro followed these with an eclectic variety of Chef Amy’s signatures dishes in a setting of slate floors, local artwork, inlaid Koa Tables reflecting soft Jazz from Eggplant walls. It was an exciting phase in her career.

Amy has spent much of the last few years consulting. From small new restaurants to Art Galleries, to the complete modernization of the menus, purchasing and farm to plate procedures at the prestigious Bristol Buenaventura Resort in Panama, Chef Amy is in high demand for an umatched skill set in design, operation, execution and taste.

These days her passion for sustainability, locavore dishes and the best ingredients that Hawaii has to offer finds her continuing and maintaining relationships with farmers, growers, fisherman and ranchers both large and small.

Amy has cooked for the likes of Charles Schwab, Colin Powell, The Sultan of Brunei, The Rolling Stones and is the absolute first choice of Hawaii’s Event Planning Companies. She finds herself from time to time travelling to New York, London, Singapore and Korea living up to her image as caterer to the World.