Chef Gale O’Malley has been awarded many honors throughout his professional career, the latest being earlier this April, 2014, when he received the National Culinary Educator’s Joseph Amendola Award from the American Culinary Federation. He is the first chef in Hawaii to be awarded this. He was the first American born pastry chef to receive the Medal of the French Government, Grand Prize for Pastry (1981), considered to be the highest and most prestigious award given to a chef in the United States. Other distinctions include two Gold Medals at the Culinary Olympics in Frankfurt Germany in 1980, and many more over the years.

Gale O’Malley presided over the pastry kitchens at the rambling Hilton Hawaii Village from 1985 to 1999, half a world away from his hometown roots in a small town in southern New Hampshire. Great Chefs was shooting their 80 episode series Great Chefs-Great Cities when they interrupted his routine at the Hawaii Village, and at that time he was considering leaving Hawaii.

Chef O’Malley prepared four dishes for the camera, a Nobleman’s Dessert Box for the Great Chefs-Great Cities series; Kona Coffee and Hawaiian Vintage Chocolate Mousse Torte for the Great Chefs of the World series; and two more dishes for the Great Chefs of the Hawaii series, a Sweet Dim Sum Box Dessert and the Unforgettable Tarte.

In 2000, the Greenbriar Hotel & Resort in the mountains of West Virginia pulled off a coup, adding Gale O’Malley’s expertise to its kitchens. In 2002, he moved up the east coast to the Hilton Short Hills in New Jersey for a year, before returning to Hawaii.

Chef O’Malley’s real dedication was to Hawaii’s young chefs, and he was active in the 80s & 90s as an apprenticeship instructor. He participated in the Hawaii Student Culinary Show, and was part of the work study for Special Education program run by the State of Hawaii Department of Education.

He now is the Pastry Instructor for the Kapiolani Community College in Honolulu, Hawaii.