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Wheat pastas and gluten free pastas are now in demand from hotels.
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Hotelier India studies the implications of serving up a healthy meal on its shelf life, taste, cost and demand.

Today there is a buzz in the industry around putting healthy food on menus.

From Ramada Powai’s zero transfats, to Westin’s SuperFoods and Gateway’s Active Foods to putting this kind of cuisine on menus without any branding, most hotel chains seem to be making some effort to serve up something that will keep their guests guilt-free after having eaten a meal.

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But how does this impact the taste of food we bring to the table? Will putting greens and baked items on the counter result in the guest turning up his nose and opting for a next-door eatery serving up some mouth-watering fast food?

Will our costs escalate in our bid to use fresh produce and more healthy ingredients in the cooking process? Hotelier India talks to some experts – chefs, brand management and suppliers who have already begun offering healthy food to foresee how this practise is likely to pan out.

Taste-wise
Popular perception has it that healthy food would be tasteless and boring whereas a guest dining at a five star expects the hotel to serve up a sumptuous meal.

Gateway hotels’ COO PK Mohankmar says that it is possible to achieve both goals with some simple tricks.

“At Gateway, chefs are aware that health food may lack palette appeal so we have come up with some interesting ways of ensuring this. So when it comes to omelettes we prepare an egg-white omelette, fried with olive oil.

Egg-whites may not be very tasty so we include things like spring-onions, coriander and rock salt which add a good taste to it,” he says. The Westin, which launched its SuperFoods cuisine about two years ago also uses a similar ‘tastespinner’ strategy to make popular healthy foods like egg whites tastier.

Egg whites are filled with parmesan cheese and broccoli which gives it a very interesting flavour. “The idea is to pick ingredients that are familiar to us (and also healthy) so the final dishes do not bring a change in the taste,” says Westin Hyderabad Mindspace executive chef Rakesh Upadhyay.

He has made other innovations to the humble egg white as well. Another option is egg white scrambled with grilled chicken Panini (pepper, jack cheese, whole wheat bread, cured tomato and arugula).