Even upscale eateries bowing to low-carb diets

Tuesday, February 17, 2004 Posted: 10:17 AM EST (1517 GMT)

http://www.cnn.com/2004/HEALTH/diet...s.ap/index.html

DETROIT, Michigan (AP) -- As Burger King promotes bunless burgers and Subway hawks low-carb sandwich wraps, some upscale restaurants are pouring on the cream and perfecting flourless batter in their own appeal to those on Atkins-style diets.

The Rattlesnake Club, one of Detroit's most fashionable restaurants, added a low-carb menu about a year ago. Another local hot spot, Opus One, added nine low-carb entrees to its lunch menu last fall.

"It's because, quite frankly, I eat that way," said Opus One co-owner James Kokas.

His low-carb menu is a fairly simple substitution process: Hold the croutons on the chicken caesar salad and serve the meat with a sauce consisting primarily of butter and egg yolks.

In emphasizing protein over starch, many high-end restaurateurs say they are simply following their own changing preferences.

Rattlesnake Club chef-owner Jimmy Schmidt says he has long avoided refined carbohydrates like white flour, white rice and refined sugar in his own diet, and he tries to keep those ingredients to a minimum in the Rattlesnake's overall menu.

About a year ago, he took it a step farther with a separate low-carb menu, which offers three choices each for appetizer, entree and dessert, as well as two salad choices. Schmidt estimates it accounts for 20 percent to 30 percent of his Detroit sales and up to 50 percent at the other Rattlesnake Club in Coachella, California.

Customers "are thrilled because they don't have to say, 'Well, I'd really like the tenderloin of beef, but I don't want the potatoes,'" Schmidt said. "This simplifies it."

From Malpeque oysters in champagne (net carbs: 3 grams) to the "gingered pumpkin creme brulee martini" (also 3 grams), the Rattlesnake's low-carb menu doesn't sound like diet fare. A full four-course low-carb meal costs $69.

While there is still much debate about the potential benefits or dangers of low-carb diets in the medical community, the trend shows no sign of waning. About 10 million people, or 3.6 percent of the population, were on a regimented low-carb diet as of September, according to the market research company NPD Group.

Low-carb food has always been available in restaurants. Ordering steak instead of pasta is an obvious choice, so many of the recent changes have just been a matter of marketing.

"Some restaurants, recognizing that this is a popular diet, are highlighting their ability to do it," said Tim Zagat, who publishes the Zagat restaurant guides.

But for chef Douglas Rodriguez, self-proclaimed king of Nuevo Latino cuisine, catering to diets like Atkins and South Beach is about more than just selling lots of ceviche, an almost pure-protein seafood dish, at OLA in New York and Miami.

Rodriguez, who says he lost 60 pounds by watching his carbs, tries to infuse his food with traditional flavors while avoiding Latin American staples like rice and yucca.

"It's just the protein with a Latin-flavored sauce," he said.

Across the board, restaurants are looking for new bases for meals to replace pasta, said Christopher Muller, a professor at the University of Central Florida's Rosen School of Hospitality Management.

Muller's own Za-Bistro in Orlando and nearby Maitland, shuns pasta without marketing itself as low-carb.

"Pasta is a very high markup item for restaurants, and it's also high value for the customer because you get big portions of good-tasting food," he said. "Now we've had to find ways to substitute that."

Za-Bistro has solved the problem in part by allowing customers to add salmon, chicken and shrimp to salads to make a full meal.

Zagat, meanwhile, said restaurants need to remain flexible enough to also serve people on lowfat diets.

And, he noted, there will always be those who break their diets when they're out on the town, as he did after coming face to face with the cakes at the famed Commander's Palace in New Orleans.

"When they put that in front of me, my Atkins diet died," he said.

You know... I'm from Detroit (well, the 'burbs, rather) and didn't know there were any fashionable restaurants downtown. Now I have more reason to go downtown when I go home for a visit.

Or... maybe not. We'll see...

>>"Even upscale eateries bowing to low-carb diets"

I wonder why they say "even". Haven't higher-end restaurants always been more keen on keeping the customer happy by honouring special requests? Seems to me that it was the assembly line joints who didn't like holding the croutons or substituting salad for 'taters.