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At Sam's Brasserie in Chiswick, west London, you could start your meal with a shaved fennel, cucumber and radish salad with citrus dressing (52 calories), or a plate of salmon ceviche with tomato, chilli and coriander (160 calories). Then, you might have the grilled mackerel with green beans (335 calories), or the savoy cabbage, lentil and caramelised onion wraps with yoghurt (260 calories), followed by passion fruit panna cotta (150 calories), or champagne granita with strawberries (86 calories).
In all, your calorie consumption for a three-course meal would come to between 398 and 645 – these dishes are all part of a 5:2 diet menu relaunched by Sam's for summer after the restaurant offered it in January and it proved hugely popular. "Every one of the 5:2 dishes, I'd put on the regular menu," says Sam Harrison, the restaurant's co-owner. "They're not dull, they have great flavour and contain great ingredients. They just happen to be low in calories." Sam's may be unusual in catering specifically for 5:2 dieters, but it is one of a growing number of eateries targeting customers who want to eat out while paying attention to their health.
Many chains now include the calorie content of dishes on their menu while the Pure Taste pop-up claims to be the UK's first restaurant for those on the Paleo Diet.
Vozars in south London serves gluten-free food.
Then there is a growing crop of restaurants catering for customers with allergies or intolerances. This makes good business sense – allergies are increasingly widespread, with hospital admissions for food-related reactions up 6.4% in the 12 months up to February 2014, while 20% of Brits say they have a food intolerance. Chefs are responding by offering allergen-free options – the Modern Pantry in Clerkenwell, east London offers a gluten-free afternoon tea, while Cotto is an Italian resaurant in south-east London that caters for all allergy sufferers and includes allergen-free menus.
Victoria Hall runs 2 Oxford Place, a gluten-free restaurant in Leeds. While around a quarter of its diners are coeliac or gluten-intolerant, others, she says, are simply trying to cut down for personal reasons. "Some report that they want to cut down because it helps them feel less bloated and lethargic. We've also had sportsmen and women who tell us it's a growing trend." This, says Katerina Georgiou of Vozars, another gluten-free eatery in Brixton Village, south-east London has resulted in a widespread improvement of the quality of options on offer. "Plus people understand that eating gluten-free has certain advantages so there is more demand for better products."
It is not just specific regimes which are being catered for. Some are drawing on nutritional science to offer menus with quirkier, one-off health benefits.
Earlier this year, the Ambrette, which has branches in Margate and Rye, launched a "food for life" menu, featuring ingredients such as Himalayan salt, bok choy and garlic. They offer a discount for the over-60s.
The Northall at London's Corinthia Hotel has created a "Power of Sleep" menu, featuring magnesium-rich foods, such as hake and pumpkin seeds, which some believe aid sleep. And at the Blueprint Café in London, head chef Martyn Moody offers desserts sweetened with fruit and spices instead of sugar, a personal interest since his stepfather is diabetic.
Such adaptations represent a break with the traditional view of chefs as inflexible kitchen tyrants, intolerant of selective eaters' whims. Both Anthony Bourdain and Gordon Ramsay have expressed less-than-tolerant views of vegetarians. Are times changing? Moody, for one believes so – and says that's no bad thing: "My job is to cook food people want to eat. It used to be the case that chefs would complain about people wanting vegetarian options or gluten-free – but we have to adapt, and find ways to make those types of food exciting. It's a good challenge."
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