Kiki Aranita

Food Writer, The Philadelphia Inquirer - Philadelphia, PA

Kiki Aranita is a chef, food writer, fiber artist, sauce entrepreneur, and recipe developer whose diverse career paths are tied together by nostalgia and care for the ocean. Whether cooking or writing, she aims to represent the flavors of Hawaii and the experiences of her ancestors who worked on Kauai’s sugarcane plantations. Raised in Honolulu and Hong Kong, Aranita holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in Comparative Literature with Italian and in Classics. Even after shifting from academia to cooking and then writing, she continues to teach at Drexel University, the Penn Museum, and Boston University, offering classes on culinary techniques and Hawaiian food history.

For seven years, Aranita was co-chef and owner of Poi Dog, a restaurant, food truck, and catering company serving Hawaii’s local food. Although she closed Poi Dog’s Center City Philadelphia location in 2020, she continues the brand through large-scale pop-ups and a line of retail sauces sold in all Mid-Atlantic Whole Foods stores, specialty grocers nationwide, and used in university dining halls and restaurants.

Throughout her career, Aranita has celebrated underrepresented multicultural cuisines and collaborated with chefs worldwide, from Canada to Bahrain and Turkey. While she still cooks, she has transitioned primarily into writing. She’s held chef residencies at José Garces’ Volvér, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Bok Bar.

Aranita has written food features, personal narratives, and sustainability investigations for publications like The Guardian, including a series on the history of sugarcane. She’s developed recipes and videos for various media and brands.

Kiki Aranita was a senior editor at New York Magazine’s The Strategist, covering kitchen and dining topics, and joined The Philadelphia Inquirer as a food writer in October 2024, where she profiles chefs, reports on restaurant trends, contributes to social media, and writes the column Hands, Please. She’s also a columnist for San Pellegrino’s Fine Dining Lovers, previously writing The Next Course and now Trend to Table, and is a frequent contributor to Food & Wine, for which she was nominated for a James Beard Foundation Media Award in 2022. She won the M.F.K. Fisher Prize from Les Dames d’Escoffier International in 2023 and an IACP award in 2024 for contributions to EatingWell’s Heritage Cooking column.