Hotel food finally gets healthier
Coriander-rubbed chicken breast with Swiss chard and sweet potato. Whole wheat spaghetti tossed with baby spinach and broccoli. Organic steel-cut oatmeal topped with fresh fruit.
These are some of the healthier options that diners can choose at the old-school Oak Room Restaurant, situated in a wood-paneled room in San Francisco’s Westin St. Francis hotel, which dates back to the early 20th century. Appropriately portioned to meet current nutritional standards and carefully crafted to include all the buzz-worthy and on-trend ingredients, these dishes are a far cry from the heavy, protein-based comfort foods served there only a few years back.
“Gone are the days of 8ounce steaks, half chickens, foie gras and cream sauces. Now it’s boneless chicken thigh, a puree of vegetables with a light sauce and quinoa,” said Bernd Liebergesell, the St. Francis’ executive chef and director of food and beverage, who serves up to 1,000 people a day in the hotel — including staff. While you can still order a hamburger off any of the restaurant’s menus, he said, everything is “lighter overall and a smaller portion.”
Hotels, one of the city’s last remaining strongholds of Continental cuisine, have jumped on the wellness bandwagon, as they say guests are demanding healthier options while traveling, tired of coming home bloated and out of shape. The result has helped shape new, more nutritious menus across small boutiques and large hotel brands — and the benefits are being felt both ways.
Liebergesell — who has cooked for everyone from presidents to Midwestern tourists during his decades at the hotel — noticed an uptick in requests for smaller portions and healthier options about three years ago. Shortly after, the Westin launched a company-wide Westin Well Being campaign, and the St. Francis became the first hotel in San Francisco to offer an entirely gluten-free menu for buffets and banquets.
The moves have been good for the hotel, too. Smaller portions made up of more grains and local produce, Liebergesell said, have contributed to a reduction in the hotel’s food costs — especially for banquets. Once hovering around 28 to 30 percent (considered a healthy range for most restaurants), the chef now manages to keep the hotel’s food costs below 24 percent of all expenses.
Small plates and vegetablecentric dishes made with locally sourced ingredients are pretty standard fare throughout many of the Bay Area’s farm-to-table eateries. But the clean-eating movement has been slower to catch on in hotels, although local hotel brands like Kimpton are working to change that image.
“Smaller portions are definitely trending in our hotels, along with farro, quinoa and kale,” said Kimpton’s George Morrone, a legendary San Francisco chef who was recently tapped as the company’s national director of culinary development. On a recent visit to one of the group’s Washington, D.C., properties, Morrone said he was pleased to find a carrot juice kombucha as a welcome amenity.
More than half of Kimpton’s 79 restaurants offer house-made coldpressed juices, while a few are working on new menus with small share plates and locally sourced meats, fish and produce. Morrone added that most chefs in the company these days are into living healthy lifestyles — “and that’s reflected in their menus.”
Kimpton’s South Water Kitchen in Chicago, for instance, has a gluten free-certified chef, while its Red Star Tavern in Portland, Ore., has its own farm for sourcing ingredients to create dishes like eggs Benedict with roasted vegetable salsa served on chickpea cakes instead of toast. At Square 1682 in Philadelphia, resident chef Caitlin Mateo cooks most of her fish en papillote with minimal oil and “lets the vegetables shine” without any heavy sauces.
While each Kimpton restaurant handles its own food costs, Morrone said, the trend toward smaller portions and sourcing locally makes business sense and does keep food costs down. “You have a lot more control that way and don’t have as much left over,” he said.
“It also changes the way people order,” he added, meaning that diners may order more dishes.
Not all hotel chefs have seen costs come down. Daniel Corey at San Francisco’s Intercontinental Hotel said Luce, the hotel’s Michelin-starred restaurant, has always focused on sourcing locally; offering more organic food or healthy options hasn’t had a noticeable impact on his costs.
The evolution is going beyond hotel restaurants and into the hotel rooms, too. Palo Alto’s 2-year-old Epiphany Hotel, which is part of the Joie de Vivre brand, helps guests avoid midnight minibar cravings by giving them an option to preorder a $95 Fresh Fridge that is stocked with house-made superfood bars, local trail mixes, yogurt parfaits, juices and seasonal salads prepared daily by the hotel’s executive chef.
The hotel’s management also decided to take its standard in-room minibars a step further by filling them with more healthful or local snacks like Cliff bars and Tcho chocolates. For general manager Lorenz Maurer, the benefits — especially the economic benefits — are clear.
“It’s easy for hotels to just offer the standard stuff, but curating it with local tastes makes all the difference in the world,” Maurer said. While the fridge or the minibar aren’t big cash cows for the hotel, he said, its in-room snack sales are 30 to 40 percent higher than most hotel minibars that offer the usual Pringles and Snicker bars.
“We’re in the middle of the health food trend and surrounded by healthy eating options,” he said. “There’s really no option but to do better. Plus, it helps to spoil our guests a little bit by offering something truly local and good.”