Stellar Chef at Lake Austin Spa Resort Rewrites the Rules for Healthy Eating

AUSTIN, TX - The idea of dining at a spa-even a world-class, award-winning one-probably doesn't excite the average food-lover. Who wants to eat steamed broccoli, brown rice, and a tiny portion of plain broiled fish, followed by-what?-a few cubes of sugar-free Jell-o? But if the property in question is the extraordinary Lake Austin Spa Resort- named #1 Destination Spa in North America by Condé Nast Traveler-even the most demanding gourmet will be seduced.

In place of flavorless "diet food", the constantly changing five-course nightly menu offered by Lake Austin Spa Resort's executive chef, Terry Conlan, might include such irresistible delights as thin-sliced raw sushi-grade Gulf snapper dressed with fresh lemon, lemon infused olive oil, red pepper oil, basil, and mint; artichoke hearts in puff pastry with parmesan cheese and romesco sauce; puréed fava bean and spinach soup with lemon cream; mixed seafood canneloni in brandied tomato cream sauce; pesto-crusted sea scallops baked with fresh tomato sauce; and even charcoal-grilled Tuscan tenderloin steak with red wine/black olive sauce and an arugula/fava bean salad with lemon/parmesan vinaigrette.

"The idea," says Conlan-who has been cooking for more than 30 years around Austin, in styles ranging from Mexican to French, Caribbean to Cajun-Creole-"is to put as many different food experiences in front of our guests as we can. We're not particularly interested in what other spas are doing. We're more interested in the stellar chefs of America and Europe. They're the ones we take our inspiration from." 

Okay, so Conlan's culinary creations are varied and delicious-but what exactly makes them appropriate for spa resort dining? "First of all," he says, "I resist the term ‘spa food'. It carries a lot of connotations that aren't relevant to my cooking. We have established certain guidelines, though. For instance, our multi-course meals average out to 1500 calories for men, 1200 for women, with no more than 20 percent of the calories from fat. But we're not obsessive about calories and fat grams. The trick is to take the high-fat dishes that people love and reinvent them with much less fat, but keeping all the flavors, textures, and traditions. We've evolved a lot in that direction. In my first few years here, heavy cream and butter never made it through the door, but they do now-just in limited quantity. I make a mushroom cappuccino, for instance, that is officially fat-free, but I put a little froth of real whipping cream across the top. I can make 60 servings with just one pint of cream. I even use bacon-but it's nitrate-free, and I just serve half a slice on top of a salad. It's a condiment, not a main course. We also have a wine program now, because wine in moderation has been proven to be good for you, and it's part of a pleasurable dining experience."

Portion sizes at Lake Austin Spa Resort are controlled; four ounces is the standard protein serving. "But we don't regulate what people eat," Conlan stresses. "If you like your fish or your steak and want some more, you can have another portion, absolutely free of charge. It's up to you if you want to go higher or lower than our established calorie figure. All we guarantee is that there are no bad choices on the menu-and that you'll get a great restaurant meal every time you sit down. "

Conlan also believes in the benefits of "eating locally". "All our beef, lamb, poultry, and eggs come from within a hundred miles of where I sit," says Conlan, "and so do most of our vegetables." The organic vegetable gardens on the Lake Austin property provide fodder for the kitchen, too. "From November to February every year," Conlan reports, "just about all our lettuce comes out of our own gardens-eight or ten kinds in all. In the summer, we use our own tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers-and get beautiful hydroponic lettuce from Dripping Springs, just down the road."

Not surprisingly, Conlan is also a popular cooking teacher. He's a monthly regular at the celebrated Central Market cooking schools in Austin, San Antonio, and Houston, and is said to have taught more classes at Central Market than any other chef. And he has launched a Culinary Experience Week at Lake Austin Spa Resort, the second week of every month, featuring morning classes in which he is joined by such illustrious guest chefs as Frank Stitt, Giulio Hazan, and Sara Moulton, followed by afternoons devoted to wine and cheese tastings and what he calls "all kinds of fun food-related things".

"We're not about deprivation here," Conlan adds. "We're about healthy indulgence."

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