Published: Mar 20, 2009
By Rosanne Ullman

Add to the healthy spa experience with fresh food designed to delight.

You spend a lot of time planning your spa menu of service selections, but how much thought do you devote to your spa menu of food selections? Whether you include full dinners in spa packages or do no more than display a daily tray of small snacks, your cuisine is key to your brand, your professionalism, and your ability to retain clients.

“You should invest in a solid culinary program, whether it’s outsourced or you have the means to hire someone on staff,” says culinary and spa publicist Jamie Estes. “Your food service should match the level of the rest of your spa.”

While destination spas typically keep a full-time chef on staff, day spas may have neither the budget nor the need for that level of commitment or even for a part-time cook. With in-house food preparation requiring a full kitchen, a day spa may find it more cost-effective to send someone to run out to the nearby café for guests’ lunch orders, develop a relationship with a local catering firm or combine restaurant lunch delivery with in-spa preparation of drinks, meals and plates of snacks.

“There are a lot of personal chefs who are preparing food for spas,” Estes notes. “I’m seeing a trend with day spas using local celebrity chefs of neighboring restaurants. It’s a good choice; the spa can enjoy the cache of having the chef’s name on the food without incurring the expense of a full-time chef. Emeril Lagasse is a household name, and that Food Network mentality trickles down.”

Part of Spa Life

From its earlier incarnation as a light bite, the “spa lunch” has evolved into an integral aspect of healthy spa life. “It’s very last century to think of spa cuisine as bland and boring or gimmicky,” says Wendy Bazilian, nutrition specialist at The Golden Door fitness resort and spa and co-owner of Bazilian’s Health Clinic in San Diego, California. “It used to be cottage cheese and liquid diets, all about deprivation and weight loss. Today there’s more variety, with the attention on nutrition, beautiful presentation, portion control and taste. Spa food can be as gourmet as in any five-star restaurant.”

With a focus on wellness and forging a mind/body/spirit connection, the spa industry has been quick to embrace nutritious menu development, and not a moment too soon. The only people perhaps even more interested in the quality of spa cuisine than spa professionals are spa-goers.

“Consumers are educated and asking what’s in the food they’re eating,” observes Estes who, along with Bazilian, participated on a spa food panel at the most recent ISPA. “They’re demanding more in terms of healthfulness, local origin and good taste. They read labels and see ‘enriched’ as a bad word. Consequently, spa professionals are having to think more about their menu selections.”
Bazilian agrees, noting, “Spa guests expect real food that is beautifully presented and will reduce their risk of chronic diseases while promoting longevity—and, oh, it must taste delicious and help them to lose weight, too!”

While other industries may paint cuisine with a broad brush, spa professionals understand customization. As you switch up every facial and massage according to each guest’s needs and wishes, so should you approach food selections with respect for individual differences.

“Americans like choices,” says Estes. “We like to have it our way. Depending on the size of your spa, you should offer a vegetarian option along with fish or chicken and know how to add flavor with a vegetable broth instead of a lot of sodium.”

At The Golden Door, which maintains a three-acre organic garden, the menu is constantly subject to tweaking. “By making the food in our own kitchen, we have full control over what ingredients go into it,” Bazilian explains. “And because we don’t use processed ingredients, it’s very easy to omit or add a food to accommodate guest requests. We address everything from mild sensitivities and personal taste to major food allergies, serious medical conditions and religious preferences. We post a food board in the kitchen and update it weekly, so our kitchen staff is informed when a guest is gluten-intolerant or dislikes garlic.”

Hand-Picked Ingredients

Tending a garden on spa grounds can go a long way toward meeting guests’ expectations, because harvesting your own food steps up your control over several key factors:

• Taste. Freshness is maximized when a food is eaten the same day it’s picked. “It boils down to flavor,” says Estes. “If you’re in the North, think of tomatoes in the summer. They’re much more flavorful than in the winter, when they get shipped from California. I am seeing a trend among spas that are pickling, canning and freezing to extend the life of their summer foods.”
• Cost. Growing some of the food you serve saves not only the expense of purchasing the items but also expenses associated with storing it.
• Environmental concerns. In your own backyard, you can limit pesticides or go completely organic. Without having to be flown in, trucked in or refrigerated, your fruits and vegetables can boast barely any carbon footprint at all.

Even if you grow your own, however, there’s no set of qualifications that make cuisine more or less “spa.” Bazilian says that variety, colorful foods and energy-enhancing nutrients are part of it, along with “low use of butter, sugar and sodium. We also prefer real, whole, unadorned foods, which science shows are synergistic—that is, they do our bodies good when used together. Herbs and spices are powerful antioxidants. One teaspoon of oregano contains as many antioxidants as three cups of broccoli!”

Chef techniques should include some of the “tricks of the trade,” Bazilian adds, such as creating smooth textures without using cream, sautéing vegetables without a lot of oil and preparing delicious desserts “that go beyond simple fresh berries to spa cheesecakes, chocolate spa cookies and flourless volcano cakes with raspberry coulis. This takes a great amount of experience and effort.”

Serving style is crucial as well, Bazilian continues. “Portion control is key in the plating of foods that look abundant but are not heavy in fat or calories,” she says. “We also give spa guests time to eat—45 to 60 minutes. We serve meals on a regular schedule to let guests feel their appetites again and notice how their mind and body work together.

Learning How to Do It

For spas that present a holistic philosophy, food has become a service in itself. Our bodies require food, and the choices we make impact our skin and everything wrapped within. Therefore, what guests eat affects the success of their outcome whether they come to the spa in search of relaxation, rejuvenation or reenergizing. Because spa clients are largely aware of this and hungry for information leading to healthier living, they will be open to any nutritional education the spa makes available, Bazilian says.

“Providing information is a big part of what we do at destination spas,” she says. “You have your meals, do your fitness, get some services and go to classes. It’s all built in.” Bazilian offers a few suggestions to fully incorporate food into the guest experience at day spas as well:

• Establish a relationship with a registered dietician in your area. It can be as loose as referring clients to the person or as involved as offering in-spa nutritional counseling as a value-added service. This can even grow into a profit center for you. Bazilian suggests checking the American Dietetic Association website, www.eatright.org, to locate a qualified nutritionist.
• Hold classes in nutrition or in cooking. “Cooking classes are becoming very popular,” Bazilian says, and they’re a fun way to introduce nutritional concepts.

• Include in your reception area’s magazine selection at least one health-related food publication. Bazilian recommends Nutrition Action Health Letter, issued by the Center for Science as a Public Interest. “It has lots of color, and there’s no advertising from the food industry to influence the content,” she comments, further mentioning Eating Well, Cooking Light and Martha Stewart Living as good choices. Your area’s Edible magazine (www.ediblecommunities.com) will give guests a local slant on good eating.
• Distribute with “compliments of the chef” small servings of food or drinks periodically throughout the day. “For our twice-daily juice break, we serve homemade, low-sodium vegetable juice,” Bazilian says. “We have a Japanese-themed spa, so we serve it in little Japanese cups. Serve everything in dainty portions. Place eight or 10 almonds and dried cherries on a small, flat, rimmed plate. Or cut grapes, available year-round at a good price, into small bunches that make a nice presentation.” Carrot sticks, cherry tomatoes and skewered berries and melon balls make excellent finger food as well. “A little spa cookie is fine,” adds Bazilian, “but present just one and make it look really pretty. Or individually wrap pieces of dark chocolate and offer only one or two.”
• At your next Open House, feature a cooking demo with a chef or restaurant. “Advertising a business in this way attracts clients,” Bazilian remarks.
• Include food in your theme months. To tie in with Valentine’s Day, for example, you can run a special menu for “Healthy Heart February.”
• Offer tips and recipes. At point-of-sale, you can go full-force by selling health-oriented cookbooks, or you can be subtler with complimentary recipe cards.

It’s important for everyone on staff to be trained in your culinary philosophies, or your message may be inadvertently undermined. “An esthetician who is well-intended but under-educated about food may give advice to a client that does not fall within the philosophy of the spa,” Bazilian explains. “For example, during a casual discussion of weight loss, the therapist may say to the guest, ‘This diet really worked for me, so why don’t you try it?’ As spa professionals, we have captured time with clients, and we all eat food and talk about it.”

The other side of that coin is that your food preparer should understand your spa’s mission and be able to design dishes that support your brand, notes Estes. More and more chefs are being trained in spa techniques, according to Bazilian, who finds spa owners and chefs traveling to The Golden Door to consult with the chef. “He helps to develop menus or fine tune an existing menu to enhance the nutrition,” she says. “Collaboration can be valuable in recipe analysis, guidance in nutrition and an update on food trends.”

To Guests’ Delight

When you do food right, your guests are delighted in the same way they’re pleased with other spa services. “We’re full of happy surprises in the foods we serve, and our guests have peace of mind when eating here,” says Bazilian, adding that day spas have a responsibility to continue the good eating for clients between visits to the destination spa.

“A day spa provides maintenance,” she says. “A lot of people have a regular, consistent relationship with their esthetician at home, and that’s the arena where the client will be talking about food and what’s going on in her life. Spa guests are intelligent, well-informed, pressed-for-time individuals. They have high stress but also high success in their lives, and they are committed to their intentions toward living healthier, active, longer lives.” 

Making Spa Food Affordable

While fresh fruits and vegetables, hormone-free chicken and imported cheeses can run up a grocery bill, not to mention wild salmon at $24/pound, nutrition specialist Wendy Bazilian maintains that a well-planned, healthful diet can actually save money. Try some of her tips:

• Do the head count. Unlike restaurants, at the spa you pretty much know ahead of time who’s showing up. Less food is wasted when you prepare realistically for each day’s guests.
• Practice portion control. Creating appropriate servings for your guests’ weight, height and energy needs means you’ll be buying less food than you might think.
• Grow your own or shop neighborhood farmers’ markets. In season, you’ll save money; out of season, frozen fruits and vegetables are nutritious and affordable alternatives. 
• Toss the soft drinks. Stick with green tea and low-cost, calorie-free water.
• Buy in bulk. While your meats and veggies may be fresh, you can store up on beans, whole grains like quinoa and oats, low-sodium canned tomato sauces, nuts, dried fruits and other pantry staples.

Food for Thought: Partnering with a Restaurant

Like many spas, Borja Day Spa has limited, but critical, needs to bring in food. What would the Borja Package be without lunch? A spa party without refreshments? Meals are optional and offered for an extra fee, but clearly some spa clients appreciate their availability.

“It’s so nice after you come out of a massage to have a candlelight dinner,” says Jennifer Snow, who co-owns the Cary, North Carolina, spa with Charles Priest. “It’s private and romantic.”

When looking for a way to bring in food, Snow and Priest saw a business opportunity. “We decided to partner with two restaurants, because we like to spread our business around,” Snow explains. “It’s been advantageous for us as well as for the restaurants. We get clients from leaving our cards there, and in turn we offer our guests coupons for dining.”

The close relationship with nearby, privately owned businesses makes it easy to customize the menu for guests with dietary requirements. “We can call them up and say, ‘There’s nothing on your menu for this client, so what can we do?’” notes Snow.  “They’ll always make something up for them.”

With both restaurants within walking distance, the organic spa can walk the talk of promoting green initiatives. “It’s a great partnership,” says Snow.

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