It’s probably more common for a chef to want to punch a food writer, but I can happily say that in this instance, it was the other way around.
I’m at The Fighter’s Club in Central, Hong Kong, a high-end one-to-one boxing and Muay Thai gym and – without much boxing history at all – I’ve been invited to spar with chef Olivier Elzer, even getting the opportunity to throw a few generous punches at his core at one point.
There’s a reason why the executive chef of the two-Michelin-star L’Envol in the St Regis Hong Kong hotel and the man behind smart French restaurant Clarence in SoHo has decided to become a punch bag for a few food writers.
Those who have followed Elzer’s journey in Hong Kong over the years know that he is one of the restaurant industry’s most visible advocates for personal fitness. He works out twice a day, hitting the gym first thing in the morning before strength training, boxing or cardio after lunch service. He tries to be in bed by 10.30pm every night to fully recharge for the next day ahead.
It might sound at odds with the life of a chef, particularly one entrenched in fine dining. After all, the industry is notorious for late nights and high-octane, high-calorie cooking, but Elzer is looking to shift the perception that luxury dining cannot equate to healthy dining.
The keto-friendly menu just launched at Clarence was designed in collaboration with keto specialist and nutritionist Oliver Smith, co-founder of Ketogenic Asia. The idea of a keto diet is to eat meals that are high in fats, with a low to medium amount of protein, and very little to no carbohydrate. The idea is that your body adapts to burn fat for energy.
How Hong Kong put the head chef of Japan’s best restaurant ‘on the map’
How Hong Kong put the head chef of Japan’s best restaurant ‘on the map’
In the case of this menu, you can forget about a bread course, as the entire menu is purported to feature no more than 10g of carbs.
It also promises to clock in at 1,088 calories and is priced at HK$988 (US$125) for five courses, including Clarence’s signature “yakifrenchy” skewers (tandoori-spiced Chilean sea bass, baby squid with spices and shallot, and pork pluma with a gribiche sauce). Another Elzer signature dish of tuna with five spices and avocado purée makes an appearance, too.
Desserts are fresh and light, heavy on berries and low-sugar sorbet, rather than rich and indulgent.
Elzer is also hoping to educate diners hoping to lose weight that while working out is important and good for the heart and soul, an important part is how much they’re eating.
“A lot of people have misconceptions about diets. Working out is nice, but you don’t only lose weight on workouts. You need to have a deficiency of calories,” says Elzer, referring to the simple principle of energy intake versus expenditure – to efficiently lose weight, you need to be burning more calories than you consume.
The average tasting menu can run to around 2,000 calories or more. In 2010, a survey found that many fine-dining restaurant menus are at least 2,000 calories – a 10-course degustation from three-Michelin-starred Per Se clocked in at around 2,320 calories (2,590 if the diner opted for the wine pairing), while a beast of a menu from Chicago’s avant-garde Alinea restaurant that included 16 to 20 courses came in at 3,045 calories without wine.
The latest daily recommendation from Hong Kong’s Department of Health for a moderately active woman between the ages of 18 and 49 is 2,100 calories, so it is jarring to hear that one fancy meal can far exceed your daily calorie quota.
I, for one, do not subscribe to the idea of “cheat meals” or obsessively counting calories daily. I believe that a nice meal once in a while does not constitute a crisis, and that less emphasis on judging each others’ – and in particular women’s – bodies would be a much healthier and more welcome perspective any day.
As someone who enjoys daily workouts as well as great meals, this particular “food fight” experience for me was a fun one, though – and the dinner itself was a solid representation of quality ingredients cooked with precision and purpose. If you hadn’t told me Elzer was serving a “keto” menu, I would have been none the wiser.
Plus, none of the calories in our wine pairing counted.