Sometimes it’s not so much about flaunting what you know as it is about knowing how to please your customers.

Take a look at Chef Jean-Pierre Maharibatcha’s credentials and you’ll find he has much to brag about. He’s a highly decorated chef with more than 14 years at five-star Ritz-Carlton hotel restaurants all over the United States, a stint at Halekulani Hotel’s Orchids restaurant, a one-year tour as an army chef and numerous accolades, including one naming him the best chef in the Lyon, France region.

His reputation for innovation in the kitchen, however, is not what landed him the job as head chef at one of Oahu’s premier dining establishments, John Dominis, just three years ago.

“To be honest, Jean-Pierre is here to help us maintain our menu as well as add his creativity to it,” says John Dominis general manager Al Yim, who notes the restaurant has gone as far as Seattle to find the best match for a John Dominis head chef. “It’s so important for us to be consistent.”

So Maharibatcha, 52 —a mix of French and Vietnamese, who was born in Vietnam, raised in France and adopted by his Indian step-father— filled the position of chef de cuisine, which had been vacant for four months. And though he says he originally came to Hawaii hoping to endear his French flavor to local tastebuds, Maharibatcha notes that it’s most important to give the customers what they want.

“John Dominis is about seafood, and I cannot make it a French restaurant,” Maharibatcha says in his thick French accent. “But I can bring my style and mingle it with local flavor. I think the food in Hawaii is very local … how can I say … very traditional. It’s ethnic, and everything is a blend.”

Maharibatcha has spent his time in Hawaii (he moved here in 1998) learning local style. This doesn’t stop the chef from adding new items to an already brimming John Dominis menu, though he isn’t always successful in turning local tastes toward Europe.

“One time I try the escargot wrapped in prosciutto,” Maharibatcha laughs. “But people say it’s too salty. I think only French people like that. French use a lot of cream sauce, too, and it’s very elaborate. I think locals want simple foods.”

But don’t think that Maharibatcha’s cuisine hasn’t been a hit with both longtime and new John Dominis customers, more than half of whom are local.

“Chef brings a different flavor to our food with his Asian/Mediterranean background and all his travels,” says Yim. “I think that, in any restaurant, a chef who travels and gathers flavors from all over can bring it down to his place and add and mix. He’s been able to infuse his experience into our local fish and produce. It’s a combination that has won over a lot of new customers.

“We can do a fish eight different ways in this restaurant, and I don’t think you can have that in very many other restaurants.”

Maharibatcha also draws on his “encyclopedia” of cooking knowledge, sometimes whipping up a dish by customer request that isn’t on the menu.

MidWeek asks if the chef has a lot in his “encyclopedia.”

“Very much!” he says with a smile. “As a chef, when you come here (to a place like Hawaii) you have to adjust. You have to blend and learn. There’s a lot of Asian influence here and I was lucky because I already know some Asian cuisine from my family.”

Maharibatcha got his start in cooking at the young age of 16 as a dishwasher at a French seafood restaurant. After helping the chef for a year, he became his assistant.

Maharibatcha’s mother also owned a Vietnamese restaurant in France for 15 years.

“I learned my Asian style from her,” says Maharibatcha. “The best thing I learned to cook from her was the pho soup and spring roll. Her restaurant was booked every night. But my mother never wanted me to be a chef. She wanted me to be a tailor.”

Maharibatcha himself wanted to be an architect at one time. “I was good at drawing,” he remembers. “But I love to eat. And I help my mother at the restaurant and I find out that food is good for you.”

After 12 years working as a chef in France, Maharibatcha came to America. In 1998, a friend he made working at one of the Ritz-Carlton Hotels encouraged Maharibatcha to come to Hawaii.

Besides his culinary skill, one thing that has endeared customers to Maharibatcha is his French accent. Somehow, “Light red wine with rosemary sauce” just sounds so much sweeter when it comes with a side of French accent.

“Garlic” sounds like “garlique” and “lemon” like “lé-mon.”

“I think he could read the phone book out loud and he would sound good,” says Michael W. Perry of the Perry and Price morning show. The show has broadcast live from the John Dominis dining room every Saturday morning from 8 to 11 for nearly two years, and includes a $24.95 breakfast buffet.

“We always joke on the show that we can’t understand half of the things chef says, and he says he can’t understand us either,” jokes Perry. “That always gets a big laugh. He’s a star and it’s a fantastic restaurant.”

Maharibatcha admits that he speaks English very well, unless he gets excited. That’s when people, including his own staff, have a hard time understanding him.

“Then they tell me to calm down,” laughs Maharibatcha, who also speaks Spanish, Vietnamese, a little Italian and, of course, French.

But when it comes to Hawaii’s pidgin English, chef says he can’t understand one bit of it.

Yim adds it’s Maharibatcha’s accent and his upbeat personality that always win over the guests. “People just love to hear him talk,” says Yim. “He has this happy, jolly personality and people think his French accent is romantic. Every Saturday on the Perry and Price show, chef comes out and says what the specials will be that day and at the Sunday brunch. He really gets people’s attention.”

This reporter met the charming chef next to green and white sea horses dancing in a bed of coral. They were flanked by a lone oyster, cradling in its pink flesh a solitary white pearl.

Far from a trek to the bottom of the ocean, I first shook hands with Maharibatcha as I stood admiring his intricate carving of sea creatures that came to life in a sturdy, oblong watermelon.

It was one of several pieces on display at the restaurant’s weekly Sunday Brunch, which celebrates its 16th anniversary in September.

“Hello, chef, I’m just admiring your work,” I said, noting the other tallow carvings at various stations depicting turtles and various sea life.

Chef explains how he’s trained in ice carving, but ice is hard to come by here so he started using fruits as the canvas for his artwork.

“It gives more value to the brunch presentation,” says Maharibatcha, who in his spare time enjoys snorkeling, playing tennis and cruising the island on his Harley-Davidson motorcycle. “It takes me two hours to carve one fruit and it lasts two days. When I do the tallow, it takes two days to make, but can last one to five years.”

Carving like this is a lost art, says Maharibatcha. “I don’t see nobody in Hawaii do this. I think it’s something we should bring back.”

Chef’s favorite items are watermelons because he likes the green, pumpkins and daikon radish. All, he says, are sturdy and firm — ideal for carving.

“I have to say that one of chef’s strongest points is his carving. You don’t see that often,” says Yim. “So we try to make sure we showcase his talent at the restaurant and at special events like the Easter Seals’ Taste of Honolulu or the Ilima Awards.”

Besides his formal training at French culinary school, Montpellier College, where he earned two distinctions for restaurant chef and hotel chef, Maharibatcha says he learned a lot (including his carving techniques) from watching other chefs in action.

“At school, they give you basic skills, but they don’t train you for everything,” he says. “You watch and you learn. I watch every chef’s style and I make my own style. A chef has to know everything from A to Z.”

To keep his skills fresh, Maharibatcha is known to jump in the line with his other chefs and whip something up.

“It’s hard to find a chef who wants to work for a free-standing restaurant,” says Yim. “When you work as a chef in a hotel, you get to delegate work. Here, he has to be able to do everything. It’s a challenge, and most chefs would rather be the guy behind the desk and not the guy on the line.”

But Yim says he “laid it on the table” when he hired Maharibatcha. He needed a chef who could both maintain and reinvent the legendary John Dominis — one of the few upscale restaurants that has continued to draw crowds since its opening in 1980.

Yim says, over the years, the restaurant has been lucky to have such a strong local following. “That really makes a restaurant,” he says. “You can depend on your tourists to a certain extent, but your local clientele is much more important for a restaurant of our caliber to be able to continue year after year.

“I told Jean-Pierre we wanted a working chef — someone who could get on the line as well as work with our staff,” says Yim. “When a new chef comes in, the staff has to adapt to his ways and vice-versa.”

By being in the trenches with them, Maharibatcha has gained the respect of the John Dominis employees, some of whom have been with the restaurant from day one.

“We all take pride in working here and maintaining this place,” says Yim. “Everything is so competitive nowadays and we need to change to keep up with the times. This is why chef Jean-Pierre is here. He has to be on top of everything.”

Take one look at the extensive dinner menu and Sunday buffet and it’s obvious that Maharibatcha is on top of everything edible.

At the Sunday brunch, which typically averages 400 to 500 patrons between 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., it’ll take you a good five minutes just to walk around and make a quick notation of what you want to devour and in what order.

From gingerbread waffles and made-to-order omelettes to a carving station with roasted suckling pig and prime rib, it’s enough to keep you full for an entire day.

A center console bathed in ice keeps oysters and island sashimi fresh and ginger chicken cold. Bite-sized pepperoncinis stuffed with crabmeat pop with flavor and eggs Benedict Florentine disappears quickly.

In addition, there are always three hot entrees of the day that Maharibatcha invents every week. Chef also isn’t opposed to letting his sous chefs experiment in the kitchen as well. If they come up with something tasty, Maharibatcha doesn’t hesitate to add it to the menu.

It’s easy to see why the motto of John Dominis, thought up by owner Andy Anderson, has always been, “You’ll never leave my house hungry.”

Once you’re seated the view from the restaurant is prime. During the day you’re offered a panoramic glimpse of Diamond Head, Waikiki and Kewalo Basin.

The glistening ocean can easily lull you into a trance if you’re not distracted by the boats moving in and out of the wharf, surfers catching waves nearby or parasailers floating about in the distance. Get a window seat and you’re also likely to see at least one of the four resident turtles who swim below, but don’t try to throw them your macadamia nut crusted sweetbread French toast. They prefer their own sea fare.

Inside the 15,000-square-foot restaurant, lava rock walls add to the island-home feel and two sets of stairs cross over the interior waterway, which is home to colorful fish and sting rays and, during peak season, is a viewing portal for the lobster of your choice.

John Dominis has always been known as a special occasion restaurant — for birthday, graduation and anniversary celebrations — but Yim says there are also regulars who come back every two or three weeks.

“That’s why it’s important that chef change the entrees to add a new dimension, so it’s not always the same old thing,” says Yim.

At dinner, Yim notes, the menu has more than enough to choose from. John Dominis, which will celebrate its 26th anniversary this November, continues to serve an average of 300 meals a night.

Chef’s favorite dinner appetizer is the California-style ahi tempura, which is stuffed with crabmeat and avocado and served with a wasabi-shoyu aioli and balsamic syrup and garnished with tobiko.

For the main course, he prefers the seafood bouillabaisse. Island shrimp, spiny lobster tail, scallops, crab legs, calamari and fresh Manila clams are simmered to perfection in a saffron tomato broth.

(By the way, when the chef dines outside of John Dominis, he says he likes to frequent Alan Wong’s, Roy’s and The Olive Tree.)

If you’re craving something raw, two years ago John Dominis added a sushi and oyster bar, open seven days a week, with four different varieties of oysters and more than 50 types of sushi.

Seafood goes hand-in-hand with the ocean, making John Dominis’ waterfront locale the perfect venue for a romantic evening or a celebration with friends.

“Our chefs have changed, but our setting, our menu, has remained,” says Yim. “There are items on there that we’ve never changed because they’ve become an island favorite as well as a visitor favorite.”

Chef Maharibatcha is the newest member of a team looking to keep John Dominis at the top by serving up the best in Hawaii seafood. So come hungry. There’s a little something old and a little something new. It’s French flair done local-style.