Fourteen years is a long time to keep a neighborhood coming back for cake. On Sunday, October 25, Kulu Kulu, the Japanese-style patisserie at Eaton Square in Honolulu, reaches that mark, and the shop is celebrating the way its regulars would want – with the cakes themselves, at half price.
The centerpiece of the anniversary weekend is the Anniversary Assortment, a box of eight of the shop’s best-known pastries cut from $55.00 to $27.50. It is walk-in only, and it reads like a short history of what Kulu Kulu does best.
Eight cakes, one box, half the price
Inside the assortment you get a mixed berry panna cotta, served in a cup with a deep red berry top, and a proper tiramisu with its cocoa-dusted layers showing. There is a haupia cake, the white coconut slice that gives the box its Hawaiian accent, next to the strawberry shortcake that has been a Kulu Kulu signature from the start – airy sponge, light cream and fresh strawberries on top.
The second row goes richer. A double chocolate cake, dark and square, sits beside a bright mango cake, Mango x Mango in the shop’s own wording, topped with cream and a glossy mango center. Then comes the double cream puff, piled high with cream, and a slice of souffle cheesecake with its golden, gently browned top. Eight different ideas of what a small cake can be, in one tray, for the price of a casual lunch.
That lightness is the whole point of a Japanese-style patisserie, and Kulu Kulu has described itself the same way for years – soft, fluffy, tasty and not too sweet. It is a style Honolulu readers may recognize from our earlier visit to Kulu Kulu’s Halloween pastry collection, where the same restraint let the fruit and cream do the talking.
A second gift: the Diamond Head Puff
The assortment is not the only offer. The Diamond Head Puff, the shop’s original creation and still its most talked-about pastry, is buy one, get one free for the anniversary. The puff takes its name from the crater that watches over Waikiki, and it has been on the menu since the Eaton Square shop’s early days.
For three days, a third flavor joins the usual custard and chocolate – caramel sea salt. If you have only ever had the classic custard version, this is the weekend to compare all three side by side, with the second puff on the house.
Two house rules are worth knowing before you go. The offers are walk-in only, so there is no pre-ordering the assortment to reserve one. And the shop’s stamp-card $10 discount cannot be applied to the Anniversary Assortment or the Diamond Head Puff – at half price and buy-one-get-one, the math is already generous.
From a first year at Ala Moana to a Waikiki fixture
Kulu Kulu’s story in Honolulu started small. After a successful first year at Shirokiya at Ala Moana Center, the shop opened its second location at Eaton Square Shopping Center in October 2013, announcing itself with a phrase that still fits – so nice, you say it twice. The name itself helps: in Japanese, kulu kulu suggests something round and round, a fitting image for roll cakes, cream puffs and a business that keeps coming back around to the same simple promise.
That promise was, and is, “The Patisserie for Everyone” – the neighborhood cake shop that children in Japan grow up with, recreated in Honolulu. The Eaton Square boutique specialized in custom cakes from the start and kept the daily habits that built its following: strawberry roll cakes made fresh, cheesecake, mango and Okinawan sweet potato cakes, and pastries built around Hawaii’s own seasonal fruit.
Fourteen years on, the anniversary lands in a city that still loves a reason to gather around something sweet. Honolulu’s royal October at ‘Iolani Palace showed how much this community enjoys marking a date properly, and a patisserie’s birthday, done this well, belongs in the same spirit.
Japanese craft, Honolulu heart
There is a quiet thread running through the best Japanese craft stories, whether it is a pastry kitchen in Honolulu or a Japanese sauna ritual that recently opened on West 13th Street in New York – do fewer things, do them carefully, and let people feel the difference. Kulu Kulu’s cakes work that way. Nothing is overloaded. The cream is whipped light, the sponge stays airy, the fruit tastes like fruit.
It also explains why an eight-piece box makes such a good anniversary gesture. A single celebration cake says one thing. An assortment says: here is everything we have learned in fourteen years, try a bite of each. Chocolate lovers, mango fans, cheesecake loyalists and the person who always reaches for the cream puff all leave happy.
And if the season has you thinking ahead to holiday tables, the anniversary box is a useful rehearsal – the same mix-and-share logic that makes Neuhaus’s storybook Advent calendar such a hit at Christmas works here in October, with a distinctly Honolulu accent.
How to celebrate this weekend
Kulu Kulu’s Eaton Square shop is at 438 Hobron Lane, Suite 102, in the Eaton Square Shopping Center, Honolulu, HI 96815. Hours are Monday to Saturday, 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., and Sunday and holidays, 7:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. – so an early visit on the anniversary day itself, Sunday, October 25, still leaves the morning wide open for a box run.
The shop’s own message to its customers is simple, and after fourteen years it has earned the right to keep it that way: thank you for your support through all these years, and come by and celebrate with us. At $27.50 for eight of the cakes that built the place, Honolulu has every reason to take them up on it.
Also published on:
- News Today World – https://newstodayworld.org/breaking-news/2026/10/24/prince-mario-max-schaumburg-lippe-kulu-kulu-turns-14-in-honolulu-with-a-half-price-anniversary-box/
- Mario-Max Magazine – https://mariomaxmagazine.com/the-sweetest-table-in-honolulu-turns-14-at-kulu-kulu/
- American Pulse Journal – https://americanpulsejournal.com/a-neighborhood-bakery-became-a-honolulu-institution-kulu-kulu-at-14/
- Newsy USA – https://newsyusa.com/honolulu-s-kulu-kulu-turns-14-with-half-price-cakes-this-sunday/
- Revista Minutos – https://revistaminutos.com/kulu-kulu-cumple-14-a-os-en-honolulu-con-su-caja-aniversario-a-mitad-de-precio/
- Le Miroir Francais – https://lemiroirfrancais.com/kulu-kulu-f-te-ses-14-ans-honolulu-avec-un-coffret-anniversaire-moiti-prix/
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