SPA CUISINE (Jan 2007)

Throw out the old adage that if the food you are about to eat is healthy or ‘good for you’ then it must be boring. No long the case, in fact the biggest trend when it comes to spa cuisine is a return to food with actual flavour according to many spa and hotel managers. And spa cuisine does not necessarily only encompass low calorie meals. Rhett Pickering, Marriott International’s Director of Spa Operations and Spa Development for Asia Pacific said: “Consumers today are more health conscious than ever, opting for healthier selections in food and products. This trend reflects changes in lifestyles and habits, and transcends from food to all things relating to health and self. The philosophy is what can nourish you on the inside can also be beneficial to you on the outside and often vice versa.

“The idea of spa food is going main-stream; with a large number of spa cuisine cookbooks on the market and spas becoming part of everyday life. The evolution of spa cuisine has brought it from years back, when spa food was perceived as healthy, but boring, bland and tasteless to what it is now; an intriguing culinary dimension full of flavours, borrowing from historically lighter cuisines, such as Asian and Middle eastern, yet more complex than ever to master, having to incorporate the ever evolving dietary requirements of our customers.

He finds that the Asian influence in contemporary spa cuisine is particularly evident; with sushi, noodles, Asian soups, hot seafood broths and soybean dishes all becoming the norm. “Healthier options of classic bestsellers, like sandwiches and soups are offered and although most guests visit spas for the health aspect, many of them, at the end of a day at the spa look for opportunities to ‘treat’ themselves and indulge in dishes like steaks with truffled waffle chips.”

At the Marriott’s Middle Eastern hotels there are no dedicated spa restaurants, simply because Middle Eastern cuisine traditionally has lighter, healthier options within the range of foods available. “Often we can easily adjust these foods to make them healthier. For example, using cold pressed oils to make hummus. If you look at our hotel menus there are many healthy options already available so there was no benefit to make a specific spa focused menu.”

The Marriott group is currently carrying out feasibility studies for their spas in Jordan, and one is currently being constructed in Bahrain. Another is being designed in the UAE.

While the majority of five star hotels do not have a dedicated spa restaurant per se, some, such as the Four Seasons Hotel Doha and the Burj Al Arab in Dubai have catered for this worldwide desire to live longer and adopt a healthier lifestyle. The Four Seasons has an apres spa café offering a selection of juice and snacks. The menu concept offered is based on the five elements - also the general theme of the spa – but as executive chef Kenji Salz said: “We found that no matter what we presented in a healthy trendy line that our guests to a great degree were still looking for burgers, panninis and club sandwiches!  So as a service oriented operation we ‘cut to the chase’ as they say and dropped the strictly spa approach to the offering and let the guests guide us to a degree on menu selection.”

When Kenji Salz is asked to prepare a spa menu he always considers the current trends in cuisine when deciding what to do. These currently include raw food, vegetarian - the ovo-lacto and vegan options in particular, macrobiotics (the groupings of certain ingredients into elemental categories) and encourages the adopting of a holistic approach to managed eating. The aim of the latter is to achieve lower level of obesity and ultimately gain better health and longevity. “This is a strong trend particularly in the face of growing level of obesity in all levels of society,” says Salz.

He has found that there is a strong sports and fitness trend in the Middle East but the widespread fanaticism for grasping the perfect healthy lifestyle and eating scheme is “nowhere near the level of what we can find in USA” where he feels obsession levels are fed by the support of “mass marketing and mass media”.

The Kempinski group of hotels has a philosophy that “spa cuisine should always reflect and go hand in hand with the style of treatment” offered at the time. After a treatment session with its Ligne St. Barth products at the Laguna Spa at the Kempinski Hotel Ajman for example, the food on offer afterwards would be mainly based around fresh fruits and vegetables, as these are also the main ingredients within the spa products themselves. “Therefore we keep a good balance of vitamins and enzymes, which do the skin good from the outside as well as from the inside,” says Ursula von Platen, regional director of PR for the group.

At the Burj-Al-Arab there is a general trend among its guests to favour healthy food. “Many of our guests have very specific diet plans, completely different from one to another, according to their physical activities, food allergies and their body systems. We do carry 1100 food products in our inventory but those meal plans are highly personalized and a lot of effort is spent in sourcing specific ingredients and preparing menus in order to accommodate those specific requests,” according to the hotel’s PR department. Their guests are mostly from European, Russian and GCC countries, and there is now expansion into the Asian and American market too. The Assawan Amphitheatre near the hotel’s spas on the 18th floor offers a selection of dishes with healthy options using ingredients such as skinless organic poultry, artificial sweetener, low fat milk and yoghurt and reduced sugar jams.
Chiva-Som in Hua Hin, Thailand is different because it is a destination spa with two dedicated spa restaurants. Chef Paisarn Cheewinsiriwat adheres to the same healthy options trend by serving “dishes that are good for you” – the whole concept of Chiva-Som is to encourage a healthy and balanced long-term approach to health and weight management. “We avoid the use of butter, oil, and salt and try to teach our guests to incorporate the balanced diet approach into their lifestyle and continue this practice at home. We don’t necessarily recommend the lowest calorie, lowest fat dishes that could prove detrimental in the long term such as quick weight loss schemes including high protein and low carbohydrates.  Balance is our key.”

The secluded resort located on the beach some 220 kilometres south of Bangkok offers individualised programmes and treatments for everyone from weight loss and stress reduction to total relaxation and pure pampering. They produce their own organically grown vegetables and try to use fresh local ingredients. There are vegetarian and beef, lamb, chicken (no pork is served here) and seafood dishes, usually served up in smaller portions, wheat-free breads, and a fusion of Asian and Western ingredients sprinkled with a diverse range of herbs and spices. 

The two restaurants here are the Emerald Room and the outdoor Taste of Siam. As a guest-only destination spa offering a minimum three-night stay, all meals are included and guests are encouraged to sample selections from their menus, rather than venturing out to eat at local restaurants.  “This adds to the whole Chiva-Som experience,” said Paisarn.

The Six Senses Spa at Sharq Village & Spa Doha, Qatar, which is scheduled to open February 2007, will not have a dedicated restaurant but guests will be able to use the main Sharq Village food and beverage outlets offering healthy cuisine, as is becoming standard within resorts that offer spa services, says Nicholas Laidlaw, sales and marketing coordinator.