The Park Chennai’s new 'Blue Zone' Gastronomy festival is inspired by five parts of the world where people live the longest
Live long and prosper. This might well be the mantra behind The Park Chennai’s inspired Blue Zone Gastronomy festival. For those who haven’t come across the term ‘blue zones’ coined by award winning journalist and author, Dan Buettner, these are parts of the world where people live the longest, like Sardinia, Italy, for instance — which is home to the greatest concentration of male centenarians in the world — according to research.
Fun fact: Legumes might just be the most underrated longevity food. Studies suggest that eating a cup of beans a day, can add four years to your life expectancy!
Grains, greens & beans
Chef Ashutosh Nerlekar who came across the idea last year, says they’ve been wanting to do a blue zone-inspired diet for a while. And we of course, found ourselves most curious as we are invited to a preview of what is in store. Expect a compact menu of 10 dishes at Six ‘O’ One, covering each of the five blue zones: Okinawa, Japan; Sardinia, Italy; Nicoya, Costa Rica; Icaria, Greece; and Loma Linda, California. With 90 per cent of the menu being plant-based and whole foods as you might have guessed, the buzzwords are ‘grains, greens and beans’.
Barley & basbousa
We dig into a plate of steamed Pinto bean and Chicken Tamales (Nicoya) paired with a spicy Brazilian salsa called molho a campanha and later layers of goodness with a Grilled Vegetable Moussaka (Icaria) prepped with canellini beans with pops of green from the harissa pesto. Even the classic minestrone soup (Italy) is supercharged to help you live longer with barley dumplings, known to lower cholestrol and a handful of lima beans in mix. We have to say, the flavours zing and pop. There is nothing bland or dull in this zone. Even the names of some of the vegetables sourced for this concept — think candy cane beets and watermelon radish — punctuate our experience with fascination. We recommend you put in a request for the Okinawa-inspired Pan-fried Silken Tofu coated with crisp golden perfection and poured over with a miso broth that packs in oodles of umami, alongside turmeric edamame, snowpeas and a drizzle of warm sesame oil. And dessert... if we could indulge in this platter everyday to live to a 100, bring it on. Dive into this gourmet-meets-forest plate: Wild honey basbousa with yoghurt cream, brown butter almonds and hazelnuts and stewed berries. Nuts are one of the five pillars of the blue zone diet and berries, blueberries especially which are known to boost brain health as you get older, are a big win.
Having just celebrated a birthday, we can honestly say after this meal, we’re excited to forge ahead into our next trip around the sun. 35 going on 100, or actually, let’s aim higher... 105? Chef Ashutosh who just returned from a sky diving adventure in Thailand, no doubt agrees, the higher the better.
February 3 to 11. Meal for two INR 2,000.