PHOTO: The beauty of Laucala Island in Fiji extends into its kitchen. (courtesy Laucala Island Resort)
While we often see the food of a destination as an emblem of its culture, the recent turn towards locally produced organic foods has also emphasized that the taste of food and wine can also be emblematic of the land itself.
The foods at Fiji'sLaucala Island Resort, thanks to the efforts of new executive chef Anthony Healy, are now giving visitors a true flavor of Fiji itself.
The resort is putting authentic Fijian food into both its service culture and its marketing. Healy is a proponent of the "farm-to-resorts" movement. Healy forages the forests of Fiji to find the freshest and truest ingredients for the resort's kitchen. The resort's main restaurant, Plantation House, features Healy's daily menus that are based solely upon what's been collected and received from fishermen earlier that same morning.
Every day, Healy and his staff forage for mushrooms and other local edibles. Healy also uses organic produce that is grown on a 240-acre hydroponic farm with 15 different types of fruit, 35 varieties of vegetables and more than 50 Fiji Vanilla plants.
The resort catches 80 percent of its seafood within a mile of the shore to preserve the offshore habitat of the South Pacific, with fish ranging from rock cod and tuna to mahi-mahi, crayfish and coral trout. These combined efforts allow the resort to operate as 80 percent self-sustainable, while guests' overall on-island experience is enhanced through cooking classes and explorations led by Healy.
"Here we maintain 'paddock-to-plate' like nowhere else in the world," said Healy. "Our menus are very much based upon what is available on that particular day; there is no back-up option of ordering from suppliers. I have grown up in the hospitality business, but no place has given me this degree of creative liberty. On Laucala Island, my freedom to craft authentic, natural dishes is infinite."
Laucala's kitchen also manages 18 beehives in different locations allowing the honey to vary in taste and scent. Animals such as poultry, cattle (including Wagyu), pigs, quails, ducks, goats and coconut crabs, are also raised on the farm. Each species of livestock is kept on a specially designed diet to make for the healthiest and happiest animal possible, which includes the island's commitment in ensuring all products remain 100 percent hormone and chemical free.
At Laucala guests can join Healy on tours of the farm and hydroponics area, with the ability to pick and taste ripe produce as available. The tour is part of a cooking class that ends with guests dining on their collected ingredients. The Fijian lovo, or earth oven, cooks food with pre-heated rocks and moisture from leaves or banana stumps. The resort presents a lovo during every guest's stay on a Fijian Cultural night, when they introduce the Kava ceremony featuring dances and prepared routines from 40 performers.
The Laucala Resort sits on a 3,200-acre island in the Fijian archipelago. The all-inclusive resort has 25 villas. Once owned by the Forbes family as a private island escape, Laucala Island was purchased in 2002 by Dietrich Mateschitz, CEO of Red Bull Drink Company, and launched in 2011 as the southern hemisphere's largest private island resort.
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