When you have a chef with a body transformation story in a five star kitchen — counting calories quickly turns from hassle to hearty inspiration. Chef Wayne Timothy Clarke says he went from 98 kgs to 78 kgs in a year by changing his diet and now he’s devised a ‘calorie counter’ menu for guests of The Park Chennai. Of course, with a team full of culinary experts at work, he says, “We’ll be chasing flavour as hard as we’ll be chasing carbs out the door.” With three diets — Keto, Low Calorie and South Beach — merged into one menu, 601’s brand new Fitness Fiesta promises you 16 reasons (dishes) why you don’t have to settle for tasteless diet food to drop that excess baggage.
At a degustation tasting — we kick things off with an Appletini shot followed by Slow roasted quail spheres with a leek and orange glaze. The latter is sweet and and savoury and one daresay, a tad addictive. Possibly why we end up finishing the whole platter of five by ourselves. Its vegetarian counterpart, a Green Melange Soup is almost too healthy for our taste. Made of asparagus, broccoli and green peas, we give it a quick sampling before we decide to give it a miss.
The Keto mains are up next. And we’re blown away by the impressive plating of our Asparagus Charlotte, long before we dig in. Twin towers of green stand tall before us, seeming to go even higher with a sesame disc placed delicately on top. Served with burnt pineapple salsa on the side and pink and yellow edible flowers — we feel a little bad to disturb this dramatic presentation with a clumsy fork.
But we are so glad we did. We get a little bit of crunch since the asparagus has not been overcooked. And plenty of contrasting flavour notes with the artichokes and sundried tomatoes within the walls of asparagus. The sesame disc is nutty and fantastic.
There are other main options like the Buttered prawns with wilted kale and the Mushroom and leek crusted Atlantic salmon — which are delicious as well. But we’d insist somebody at the table ordered the Asparagus charlotte — if only for that perfect Instagram shot. We took more than our fair share...
For dessert, we try the millet, nuts and dry fruit stuffed slow baked apple with date ice cream which is no doubt good for you.
Ongoing till September 9. Sample package portions are available. Prices: Rs 800 (veg) Rs 1,200
(non-veg) and Rs 1,000 (for both). Also can be ordered a la carte.