Alexis Gauthier, chef-patron of Gauthier Soho in London, has become the UK's first Michelin-starred chef to include calories on his menus. I caught up with him about his reasons behind the move
Why did you decide to list calorie counts on your menus?
Last October, my doctor diagnosed me with fatty liver disease caused by the fact that I consume too many calories on a daily basis. So even though I wasn't obese or anything the fatty foods I ate as a chef had an impact on my health and he told me that I had to decrease my calorie intake. I then went to the USA and most of the restaurants there list calories on their menus and on my return to London I decided to start doing this on my menu.
Do you not think that this will put diners off or ruin the fine dining experience?
Not at all. In this day and age most people dine out a lot more than they used to and it's not always a special treat and people don't always go out to stuff themselves. To be able to dine out as often as you want and understand the impact on your body is really important. Back in the 1980 when menus listing prices were first given to women, it was a big change. I'm convinced this is the future.
How do you accurately work out the calorie counts of the individual dishes?
It's not as complicated as you might think. We work out the weight of the foods of each dish - the content in grams of butter or fat for instance - and then input it into an online calorie counter which works it out pretty accurately.
What's are the most and least calorific dishes on your menu?
The heaviest is the Angus beef and black olives, which comes with bone marrow and is cooked in a pot with Italian lard, which has 565 calories. The lightest is a radish, fennel and crab salad at 242 calories.
Would you encourage other top-end chefs to follow in your footsteps?
Yes absolutely. I think this is the kind of information that customers will want to have in the future and therefore the top-end chefs have to be at the forefront of giving their customers what they want. At the end of day it's about providing information and in the future I think it'll be as important to list calories on your menu as it is to list the price of a dish.
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