Experiences on the menu.
Hungry for something new? Many are these days, and their appetites are taking them in new directions. Experiential dining, framed by PureWow as “when a restaurant goes beyond the traditional style to offer their customers a unique ‘experience,’” has taken off, building on momentum from last year when Yelp saw searches for offerings such as “dinner theaters” and “underwater restaurants” bounce 109% and 263%, respectively. Possibilities are all over the map. Culinary tourism via train is on the rise, as noted by Vacations By Rail, which cited possibilities from food-and-wine immersions in Excellence Class aboard the Glacier Express in Switzerland, to culinary-themed high-speed rail excursions between cultural capitals of Europe including cooking classes and tastings at wine estates. On the Baja California peninsula in Mexico, Montage Los Cabos has found a niche bringing in chefs from world-renowned restaurants – such as Dominique Crenn of three-Michelin-starred Atelier Crenn in San Francisco, and Mauro Colagreco of Mirazur in Menton, France, hailed as the #1 restaurant in The World’s 50 Best Restaurants in 2019 – for weeklong-or-even-longer culinary events that can’t be experienced anywhere else.
Outdoor dining, which city folk got the hang of on sidewalks during the pandemic, has become “a full-fledged dining model for many hotels and resort,” according to Food & Wine, with all-weather surroundings like bubble domes setting scenes from Gurney’s Newport Resort & Marina on Goat Island in Rhode Island to Grand View Lodge in Nisswa, Minnesota, where average highs in the heart of winter are just 25° F.
Waiter, another Hot Toddy over here, please!
Montage Big Sky, the luxury alpine resort set amidst the snowy peaks of Montana, has partnered with the revered Champagne maison Veuve Clicquot to debut the ultimate Après experience and first global activation from La Grande Dame, pairing winter and mountain culinary favorites such as Traditional Caviar Service, Pumpkin Fondue and Montana Bison Chili with beautiful bubbly. Meanwhile, the La Grande Après at Backcast activation extends outdoors, inviting guests into one of the cozy huts overlooking the resort’s ice-skating rink, where they can enjoy the La Grande Après experience before views of the Spanish Peaks Mountain range.
Along with locally grown ingredients, onsite gardens have become key for hotel food & beverage programming, with properties such as the new Wildflower Farms, Auberge Resorts Collection in the foothills of the Catskill Mountains of New York inviting guests to putter through its farm and heirloom gardens, while Las Qolqas EcoResort in the Sacred Valley of the Incas of Peru plays off its “zero-mile policy” by nurturing seeds in its greenhouse bar and restaurant and encouraging guests to pick organically grown ingredients from its onsite orchard.
The Bushcamp Company has made its operation as ‘green’ as possible as per its core conservation and sustainability ethos, including the development of The Farm just a few short minutes away from award-winning Mfuwe Lodge. An expansive and continuously growing operation featuring 500 mango trees, 35 beehives and an extensive worm farm, The Farm not only provides fresh and seasonal ingredients for Mfuwe Lodge’s kitchens without adding to its carbon footprint through transportation, but also provides training and employment to the local community. Nothing is wasted, with any excess harvest used to make delicious staples such as jams and marmalades, juices, sauces, salsas, and sundried fruits and tomatoes.
Hotel bars continue to shake up rather than stir the drinking scene by leaving spirits in their bottles. As reported by Skift last fall, “hotel food and beverage outlets are adapting their drink menus to satisfy increasingly health-conscious guests and offer brands an opportunity to increase profits.” And so The Ritz-Carlton, Grand Cayman is keying into the preferences of health-conscious guests with ingredients such as fresh-pressed local juices, and coconut water and ginger at its al fresco dining concept Saint June, while Hyatt has seen participation in its Zero Proof, Zero Judgment program – making zero proof beverages a staple year-round – grow by 70% since launching in late 2021 across myriad brands.
Cheers to that!
WELLNESS AWAKENED.
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TAKING FLIGHT.
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