Chef Cookie Hadley grows Bonito’s menu one big ass bowl at a time

Christopher ‘Cookie’ Hadley did not get his nickname from scarfing down a full sleeve of Thin Mints when he was 5 years old.

That would be so ordinary. And Cookie Hadley’s story of how a kid from Kansas City became the executive chef of a Hawaiian-infused restaurant in Asheville, and now his own globally inspired kitchen inside a former Greyhound bus station is not ordinary.

Cookie grew up on the Kansas side of Kansas City, where beef and barbecue are home on the range, but thanks to his Japanese stepfather who was born and raised in Honolulu, Spam musubi – a Hawaiian style Spam sushi – was often in his grade school lunchbox. He spent summers in Hawaii with his stepfather’s family, and fell in love with the culture, food and flavors.

One of his weekly chores at home in Kansas City was preparing dinner for the family, and he developed enough skills to begin working in kitchens. “The first upscale restaurant I worked in was Figlio, an Italian place in Kansas City,” he says. “I started at the bottom and a year later, I was head line cook. In a lot of ways, my life was a mess, but cooking was something I could do and count on.”

From the Sunflower State he segued to the Sunshine State, bouncing into and out of the kitchens of very high-profile restaurants owned by very high-profile chefs in Miami and Coral Gables. He was walking the line between professional highs and personal lows, struggling with substance abuse.

One night, members of Zendik Farm – an intentional community of artists, musicians and craftspeople founded in California in 1969 — crashed in the house he was sharing with friends. Totally intrigued, he quit his job, jumped in their van, and joined the commune, landing in Austin, TX.

“Things became real there. We grew our own food, we had horses, dairy goats, dairy cows, pigs and chickens. It cleared my head and was good for me.”

Zendik brought Cookie to Western North Carolina in 1999, part of a 12-man advance crew sent to prepare a dormant property for the next settlement. “There was an old farmhouse and a big old horse barn where we first lived in the hay loft. It was hard work, clearing brush and putting up fences.”

Cookie built an outdoor kitchen — minus running water and electricity — on the back porch of the farmhouse and fed the dirty dozen three substantial meals a day.

“One of the guys would come in and with this cowboy movie voice, would say, ‘What’s for dinner, Cookie?’ When the rest of the commune came up, we had a big celebratory dinner, and he told the story. Everyone pointed at me and yelled ‘Cookie!’ and that was it.”

He was with Zendik for five years and remains grateful for the life-and-name changing experience. “I learned a lot about work ethics and integrity and wanted to take that out into the world.”

He set out for Asheville with $20, a backpack, his dog, and a short-term plan to crash with a former farm member and get a job; the long-term goal was to move back to the Midwest. In two days, he had a job at Zambra, and met the future mother of his future child. Scratch Kansas City. “A year and a half later, I was a father and buying a house.”

He stayed in Asheville, adding Homegrown, Pomodoro and Glass Onion to his resume. He bought Morning Glory in Black Mountain in 2008 and had it until 2013. Mining his own experience and several years sober, he did substance abuse counseling, but cooking was in his DNA.

An ad on Indeed seeking an opening executive chef for a soon-to-open restaurant with a Hawaiian concept caught his eye, and he met pastry chef/owner Melissa Gray at the River Arts District site.

“She told me what she wanted to do, and I told her I grew up eating that food. I knew I could go back to my childhood food and do it in a more elevated way.”

RosaBee’s opened in September 2019; six months later, when the pandemic shut Asheville down, he and Gray soldiered through, opening a day or so later with take-out only, then outdoor dining on a newly expanded patio. “We were posting social media updates two and three times a day, and it really built a following for when we opened.”

Five years in, feeling in need of more agency, he saw a post on Facebook about a newly opened cocktail lounge in East Asheville’s former Greyhound bus station, with a small kitchen for rent. Peter Montague and Adam Barnnasch, owners of The Hound, wanted to expand the bar’s food program beyond bags of chips and occasional food trucks.

“They had created such a cool vibe that people wanted to hang out, and they wanted to eat. Peter and Adam just didn’t want a restaurant.”

Cookie left RoasBee’s in mid- July 2024 and solo-launched Bonito Kitchen on July 31 in a small space with minimal kitchen equipment.

“My opening menu was snacky things and sandwich oriented, things that didn’t require a lot of cooking in the traditional sense. Shortly after, they decided maybe we could invest in more equipment.”

On September 27, 2024, Helene put everything on hold. The Hound and Bonito re-opened in late October and Cookie drastically scaled back his menu – potable water was still being delivered by truck – and adjusted to that new reality, recalling the rudimentary set up at the Zendik Farm kitchen back in the day.

Going into the new year, he switched from minimalism to expansion. “The current menu is big,” he says with a laugh. “We still do it in a small space with less equipment, but now I have two cooks and two dishwashers.”

He also has new dishes for new dishes. “What I inherited was not reflective of the food we are doing, so I ordered new dinnerware.”

Which led to a particularly popular section of the current menu. “When the bowls I ordered came in, they were massive, so much bigger than I expected, so I figured we’d just have to have a section called Big Ass Bowls and put in all the things. People love them, especially the Ahi Tuna Poke.”

Despite the Hound owners’ initial reluctance to be a ‘restaurant,’ Cookie is steering Bonito that way, a few items at a time. “It’s more of a dinner style menu now. We have an appetizer section, a few handhelds like the Cubano, but large plates like the Hawaiian Garlic Shrimp, the Loco Moco Wagyu beef short ribs, the B’stilla Moroccan filo pie with chicken and kale, that’s all dinner.”

He is often asked what kind of food Bonito is. The long answer: “I’m pushing the boundaries on what American food is, if American food means embracing the cuisines of other cultures into New American.” The short answer? “We make good food.”

More on Bonito Kitchen

— Written by Kay West

Photos courtesy of Cookie Hadley and Bonito Kitchen
First photo: Chef Cookie Hadley
Second photo:  Loco Moco Waygu beef shortrib
Third photo:  Big Ass Ahi tuna poke bowl