HEALTHY RESORTS
Southwest Florida resorts are investing millions in upgrades that include healthier dining selections. It’s a delicate balancing act.
Southwest Florida is home to many beautiful resorts offering all kinds of amenities. In the past few years, hundreds of millions of dollars have been poured into renovations providing more than a facelift: The redesigns brought big changes in dining that appeal to the growing demand for healthful meal choices, while still allowing for the splurges many people want on vacation. And while the intentions of the alterations may be to offer the best to overnight guests, managers and chefs are using fresh, regional and thoughtful fare to also lure locals and the visitors who’ve found lodging elsewhere.
Sundial Beach Resort & Spa on Sanibel has experienced both ownership changes and multimillion-dollar renovations of late, and in February opened the intimate Shima Japanese Steakhouse & Sushi Bar. Chefs use minimal sauces and very little oil or butter on their hibachis. The fish served is mostly from surrounding waters and sustainable, the meats hormone free, the vegetables are local and heirloom when possible.
Sushi chefs create artful plates in Shima and in the Sea Breeze Café. Executive chef of culinary operations Criss Menassa hopes to add a traditional sushi bar, to keep up with the demand. She doesn’t just preach the healthful food message for the resort— she lives it—having recently changed her diet to a “cleaner” one. That shift has led to some great new discoveries that are being passed on to guests.
Menassa says she asked one of her chefs for sushi one day, and “He made me a salad of romaine, crab, spicy tuna, masago, and a yuzu vinaigrette … Oh my God, it was so good I put it on the menu; very light, very refreshing, filling, it fires on all pistons.” She continues: “I’ve added a bunch of healthy salads, it’s the right thing to do, the healthy way to eat, no more heavy sauces and dressing.”
Her entrée proteins are served with a starch or fresh vegetable. She notes, “I kept it clean and simple, no massive portions. People aren’t looking for those big portions anymore.”
And at the poolside restaurants Turtle’s and Slice of Paradice, you can still get a typical grouper sandwich or a Harris Ranch burger, but also several salads served in Sea Breeze, ceviche, or a simple, delicious bowl of mussels made with white wine, garlic and butter.
The hand-tossed pizza dough is made fresh, and the ice cream comes from the Working Cow in Sarasota. Menassa explains, “It’s 100% natural, no preservative. I’m thrilled to death with the product and it stays in line with what we want to do here—local products and produce.”
Andreas Singer, executive chef at Hyatt Regency Coconut Point Resort and Spa in Bonita Springs, sees the biggest change toward more healthful eating in the big groups and banquets. The resort just completed a $4 million renovation of its banquet and meeting space.
Singer says, “In general, people look a bit more for healthful options like egg white omelets, steel-cut oatmeal and quinoa porridge,” all served at the casual dining spot, Tanglewood.
At all the resort’s restaurants and especially in its more upscale Tarpon Bay, the chef first tries to buy local produce and items from Florida. He serves grass-fed beef from the well-known, sustainable Harris Ranch in California and is a partner with the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch Program, which requires
a commitment to sell environmentally responsible seafood.
Marco Island Marriot Beach Resort, Golf Club & Spa is in the final stages of an ambitious three-phase renovation that features an adults-only tower. Included in the project is MAIA, a bright, casual restaurant focusing on local and regional ingredients with an unbelievable breakfast buffet.
On the opposite end of the spectrum is ARIO, designed with rich wood, stone finishes and fiber optic lighting that makes the ceiling look like the night sky. This chic yet natural decor gives dinners an expectation of a more “clean” dining experience—and ARIO delivers.
Chef de cuisine Gerald Sombright aims for simplicity in preparation, but with lots of flavors and spices from around the world and carefully sourced ingredients. The chef dry-ages the top quality beef he serves, in house; an impressive operation.
Island and waterfront resort restaurants often have a built-in clientele—because it takes an effort mentally and physically to leave a beautiful beach property. Holding its own in downtown
Naples, however, is the Inn on Fifth’s Avenue 5 restaurant. The $3 million dollar vintage glam restaurant wins over patrons who can choose among dozens of other establishments lining the popular avenue.
Executive chef Dave Nelson says the hotel’s diners are “looking for things that are simply prepared, steamed or grilled or lightly seasoned, a little bit of acid, and that’s really all they want. The demand for healthier food has grown exponentially over the last couple or years.”
As for the gluten-free craze, Nelson says, “In most higher-end restaurants that are from-scratch kitchens, there’s not a lot of gluten on the menus anyway. Very rarely do I use flour to thicken sauces. There are so many better and different ways of reducing things.”
Avenue 5’s Simply Prepared Fish options are one of its most popular, healthful entrées. Patrons pick the fish and method of preparation, and it’s served with seasonal vegetables. The kitchen will even cook fresh catch from a hotel guest who has a successful fishing trip.
IT IS A CHALLENGE FOR ALL OF THESE CHEFS TO GET LOCAL PRODUCE IN THE SUMMER BECAUSE IT’S TOO HOT TO GROW SOME ITEMS.
But when it comes to someone on vacation wanting to indulge, Nelson says, “I like eating that stuff too, on occasion. Most of us do and it’s just making sure the menu is balanced. The lobster mac and cheese is not short on calories or cheese … You have to have something for everybody.”
The menu has undergone some big changes and its goal is being local. Nelson explains, “People want to eat Florida food and cuisine … I want to showcase it as much as possible.”
That being said, it is a challenge for all of these chefs to get local produce in the summer because it’s too hot to grow some items. This past winter, many crops were drowned by unseasonal rains. Chefs are then forced to source the best products they can find from out-of-state farms, and have them shipped the day they are picked.
This is just one reason why eating healthfully can also be pricey. These chefs are all faced with the difficulty of balancing costs, which sometimes can be as daunting as finding the best food purveyors.
“PEOPLE AREN’T LOOKING FOR THOSE BIG PORTIONS ANYMORE.” —Sundial executive chef of culinary operations Criss Menassa
When looking at the bigger picture, Nelson says the responsible and sustainable food movement has to start somewhere. He adds, “I can sit back and say I’m just one restaurant, I can’t make any impact. But that’s not gonna get us anywhere. If I can influence the cooks and chefs underneath me, they can influence more people when they become chefs and that’s how the movement grows.”
That’s a sentiment close to the heart of chef Dave Rashty, who opened the area’s first farm-to-table restaurant: Jack’s Farm to Fork, at the Pink Shell Beach Resort & Marina on Fort Myers Beach. “It’s the number one food trend in the U.S. right now and it really shouldn’t be; we should be sourcing food the right way anyway,” Rashty says.
On a personal mission to change the food system, Rashty is a member of a number of health-conscious, food-related boards that reach out not only to consumers but, more importantly, to chefs. He notes, “Once we educate them and they start demanding better products, then the community starts demanding better, too.”
Also a partner with the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch, Rashty is a champion of creating a market for lionfish. These beautiful fish, dumped into the Gulf from home aquariums, have no known natural predators and are doing tremendous damage to the reef system.
Rashty wants to help get rid of lionfish by establishing restaurant demand, explaining: “Once there is a demand we can create a market so it will be easier to source. It’s just that initial push to get divers down there, and companies that catch them in their nets as a byproduct, to save it and sell it.”
The mild white fish is similar to a hog snapper and is popular at Jack’s, according to Rashty. He says, “I sold about 40 pounds in the last 10 days … It sets the menu apart as being unique.”
There’s not only a problem sourcing the fish, but some chefs don’t want to deal with its 16 poisonous spikes on top and six on the bottom—hence the reason for no predators. Rashty says he uses two pairs of gloves and easily cuts off the spikes, assuring patrons that the poison from the spikes can’t get into the meat.
The chef’s healthful influence is also being felt at the Pink Shell’s newly expanded Bongo’s Beach Bar and Grill. Its menu
features grains and other items found at Jack’s. Like other chefs looking for balance, Rashty has sprinkled his menus with a few indulgent desserts and a decadent lobster risotto at Jack’s.
Rashty is passionate about educating the public, as well as chefs, that “The commodity product (mass-produced items) we source is killing us. It’s doing a lot of damage and what we’re not paying for food on the front end, we are paying for medical bills on the back. It just doesn’t work.”
His vision for the future is shared by all of these chefs, to “evolve to where there is a market that I can do everything in a 300-mile radius. I would love to be able to have that here so we don’t have to say it is farm-to-table; every restaurant out there just is.”
“THE COMMODITY PRODUCT (MASS-PRODUCED ITEMS) WE SOURCE IS KILLING US.” —Chef Dave Rashty of Jack’s Farm to Fork at Pink Shell