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JANUARY – MARCH 2017<br />
VACATION INDUSTRY REVIEW<br />
RESORTDEVELOPER.COM<br />
Food as Theater<br />
Every month, Karisma Hotels & Resorts brings together top chefs and<br />
sommeliers in back-to-back events as part of its Gourmet Inclusive<br />
Experience. Owners and guests at Karisma resorts on Mexico’s<br />
Riviera Maya are invited to participate in the Jackson Family Wine<br />
Culinary Series and Canadian Beef Series, by Karisma. Each weeklong<br />
event kicks off with a beach barbecue meet-and-greet, followed<br />
by demonstrations, cooking classes, chef’s tips, vertical tastings,<br />
and expert wine pairings. The events culminate in the Guest Chef and<br />
Wine Master Dinner, prepared live and served in Karisma’s palapa-style<br />
Fuentes Culinary Theatre.<br />
“People can ask questions of the chef and the wine personality. It’s<br />
a truly interactive experience and wonderful culinary entertainment,”<br />
Hanlo says. “We have chefs calling in saying, ‘Hey, I want to be a part of<br />
this.’ We can handpick them.”<br />
Dining is an integral part of the Karisma Gourmet Inclusive<br />
Experience. Every resort has as many as 15 restaurants on-site,<br />
each offering a unique experience. Le Chique — a AAA Five Diamond<br />
Award–winning restaurant at Azul Sensatori Mexico, a Gourmet<br />
Inclusive Hotel in the Riviera Maya — is billed as a multisensory dining<br />
adventure, from its sleek, modernist decor to seasonal tasting menus<br />
featuring foods that are deconstructed, then reconstructed to resemble<br />
something else. Nothing is what it seems: Spheres are cocktails.<br />
Entrees masquerade as dessert served on a pedestal or resting on<br />
a sling. Textures and flavors are designed to puzzle and amaze.<br />
JOYÀ at Vidanta Riviera Maya turns the concept of dinner theater<br />
up a notch by immersing diners in the magical world of JOYÀ, the first<br />
Cirque du Soleil show to include a dining experience as part of the<br />
performance. The resort’s chefs created a three-course meal to mirror<br />
the different acts of the show: Bread is shaped like bonsai trees, an<br />
appetizer plate emits the fog of the forest, the menu can be dipped<br />
in salsa and devoured. Staged in the specially constructed Cirque du<br />
Soleil Theater on-site, JOYÀ is the product of one of many successful<br />
partnerships Grupo Vidanta has embarked upon to add excitement<br />
to its brand.<br />
Getting the Details Right<br />
“We started out in the restaurant business as more of an amenity for<br />
our guests, then we really knuckled down and focused on the quality<br />
of the experience and the quality of the food,” says Mark Waltrip, chief<br />
operating officer of Westgate Resorts. Today, the developer operates<br />
about 50 restaurants and bars within its properties in popular vacation<br />
destinations throughout the U.S.<br />
A small team of food and beverage executives and chefs meticulously<br />
develops branded dining concepts — everything from gourmet<br />
gastropubs to the award-winning Edge Steakhouse at Westgate Park<br />
City Resort and Spa in Park City, Utah. In just four years since it opened,<br />
the restaurant has earned accolades for its menu, including wagyu beef<br />
from cattle raised to the strict standards of American Kobe, wild-caught<br />
fresh fish and seafood flown in daily, complemented with locally sourced<br />
and organically grown produce. The restaurant was recently named one<br />
of the 10 Best Restaurants in Park City, Utah, by USA Today.<br />
“It comes down to three things: You have to have great food,<br />
you have to have great service, and you have to have a great sense<br />
of place,” Waltrip says. With a particular demographic and market<br />
in mind, the team shops the competition and fine-tunes the menu in<br />
Westgate’s Orlando test kitchen. While food is the star, Waltrip believes<br />
the details, such as the seating plan, matter.<br />
“We really look at every seat in the restaurant and we visualize,<br />
Procuring sustainable seafood and local fish and produce<br />
are priorities for community-minded Lakeside Seafood & Grill at<br />
The Huronic Residences at Living Water in Collingwood, Ontario.<br />
Would I be happy sitting at that table?” he explains. “My dream of a<br />
perfect restaurant is like what we did with Edge Steakhouse in Park City.<br />
You walk into that restaurant and there’s a perfect table for everybody.<br />
That, to me, is the ultimate design of a restaurant, creating a comfort<br />
zone where people are happy with the table you walk them up to.”<br />
Instead of the standard booths lined up along a wall, leaving half the<br />
dining party with a view of the wall and the other half trapped behind the<br />
table, Edge mixes circular banquettes with freestanding tables to give<br />
every diner a view of the elegant decor.<br />
“It’s not about just plating up food and kicking it out the door,” Waltrip<br />
says. “It’s really focusing on the details of the guest experience, from<br />
the menu design to the presentation, the type of plateware we use, and<br />
the seating arrangement. Whether we’re doing casual or fine dining, it’s<br />
making sure we ask ourselves this fundamental question: Is this a place<br />
I would want to eat?”<br />
Farm to Fork<br />
A commitment to sustainability is expected these days, says Brandon<br />
Maeda, director of food and beverage for The Westin Ka’anapali Ocean<br />
Resort Villas in Maui, Hawaii. “Nowadays, people are very savvy and<br />
aware of what’s going on in the culinary world. They want to know where<br />
you source your food from. Is this fish being caught responsibly? Where<br />
did you get your cheese? If you’re not being sustainable, if you’re not<br />
using local products, people are not as attracted to you.”<br />
Indeed, 68 percent of American consumers say they are more likely<br />
to visit a restaurant that offers food items from nearby producers, according<br />
to the National Restaurant Association. Headlining its 2016 Top Food<br />
Trends are locally sourced meats, seafood, and produce, as well as<br />
hyper-local food such as herbs and vegetables grown on the premises.<br />
The regional Italian dishes on the menu at The Westin Ka’anapali’s<br />
Pulehu, An Italian Grill are made with vegetables purchased from island<br />
farmers, fresh fish, and local products such as cheese from Maui’s<br />
Surfing Goat Dairy. An on-site aquaponics garden — a chemical-free<br />
environment in which underwater plants are nourished by the by-<br />
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