As you’re trying to choose a luau, you’ll probably come across the term imu ceremony. You may be wondering what is an imu and why is there a ceremony. An imu is an underground oven that uses a combination of hot coals, stones and layers of leaves and cloth or mats to bake and steam food. For a luau, an imu is primarily used to cook the delicious shredded kalua pork, a staple on any luau menu. Vegetables, like Molokai sweet potatoes, are also usually cooked in an imu for a luau.
An imu ceremony is usually held at the beginning of a luau before the dinner is served. It’s simply an uncovering of the imu to remove the cooked foods and carry them to the kitchen to be prepared to serve. Though, there is really no pomp and circumstance to this brief ceremony, it is interesting to see this ancient cooking process and luau procedure.
Some luau companies do not have an onsite imu for an imu ceremony. From experience, I wouldn’t say that having a imu ceremony is a necessity for a luau as it’s only a very small part of the overall experience. That being said, if your luau research has honed in on a couple of luau options and one has an imu ceremony and the other doesn’t, I’d recommend choosing the one with the imu ceremony.
If you are trying to plan to attend a luau on your Hawaii vacation, see my tips for choosing a Hawaii vacation luau. Also, take a look at these posts comparing the major luaus:
Have you been to a luau in Hawaii? Which one did you attend? Did you see an imu ceremony? What did you think?
Sheila Beal
9 comments
Hi Sheila,
Wow, you always come up with great articles! I was wondering if you could provide a comparison of Oahu luaus. There are about 5 or 6 luaus on the island of Oahu:
Alii Luau at PCC (Laie)
Germaine’s Luau (Kapolei)
Paradise Cove Luau (Kapolei)
and 2 or 3 others in Waikiki
Hi Chris,
Thanks for the nice compliment. 🙂
You’re right – I really do need to work on an Oahu luau comparison. Those comparison posts may not look like much work, but they are really time consuming and take lots of searching and phone calls. So, I’ve been putting that on the back burner for a while. Maybe I should just get started and work on it as I have time.
mmmmm now i’m getting hungry.
I went to Germaines Luau and it wasn’t bad. I thought the food was decent, the drinks were good, and the show was very entertaining. There is a certain “commercial” aspect about luau’s in general but I think overall it’s a great time and a great experience.
Hi Jim – wouldn’t some kulua pork be good about right now? 🙂
I know what you mean about the commercial aspect. I hear a lot of locals saying not to go to this or that luau because it’s not “authentic”. My contention to that is that it would be the extreme rare situation that a visitor would get invited to a true local and authentic luau. Overall, I think a luau is definitely worth doing. I love the music, dancing and costumes.
At the end of the night the question is whether you have a good time and I think you can have a good time at most any of the luaus in Hawaii.
In terms of luaus, I think once is enough and so the only one I’ve been to is the one at the Hyatt in Kauai. While the entertainment was great, I found the food to be pretty bad. I love desserts and found that the Hyatt served the worse cake ever at the luau! So my tip would be to find one that great reviews for the food as well as the entertainment.
Hi Nathalie – oh my goodness…how can they mess up cake? That would be bad for sure!
I’ve enjoyed the luau at Pradise Cove a few times. The food and entertainment are good, there’s a concerted effort to inform the guests about local practices, but yeah – it’s got more in common with Vegas than with the local luaus I’ve been privileged to attend.
Visiting (late again!) for the Carnival of Aloha.
Just did Sea Life “luau” and horrible. I was expecting good food, good show. And an imu ceremony. Bad food, no ceremony and amateur show. Certainly now worth the cost.