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HOTEL BUSINESS REVIEW

AUGUST FOCUS: Food & Beverage

 

Food and Beverage Trends in the Wake of COVID-19

By Ingo Stöneberg Executive Chef, Alma Resort | August 2020

In my role as executive chef of the new Alma resort overlooking Long Beach on Vietnam's Cam Ranh peninsula, my team and I buy as much fresh and local produce as we possibly can for our resort's diverse culinary landscape, comprising a total of 14 food and beverage outlets. 

For example, the live tanks at our beachfront Atlantis restaurant, that specializes in fresh, local seafood, are brimming with local favourites such as Long Beach Sea Crab, Nha Trang Flower Crab, Cam Ranh White Pomfret, Nha Trang Grouper, Thuy Trieu Sea Clam and Cam Hai Sweet Snails from local suppliers. What's there not to like about indulging seafood on an outdoor terrace overlooking the very waters where the seafood comes from? 

Our guests sure seem to like it. We buy organic vegetables such as carrots, cabbage and lettuce from the nearby verdant city of Dalat, and plenty of other ingredients such as herbs and spices from the local markets. I could go on and on but the point is you try to support your local communities as much as possible, as they are definitely affected by the pandemic in one way or another.

I understand that we cannot always 100% buy local. At our resort we still need to source certain items from Italy and Japan for our Italian restaurant 'La Casa' and modern Asian restaurant 'Asiana', such as, for example, frozen octopus for the latter. However, we have incorporated as much local produce as possible, particularly from the sellers who have found themselves in all sorts of difficulty.

For example, the price of watermelons in our region has dropped dramatically, to about a quarter of their previous selling price, because the suppliers can no longer sell them to China.  We have bought plenty of watermelons for our staff to consume in our staff canteen and to take home to their families.  Our bonds with the community, via our local seafood suppliers, vegetable suppliers, fruit suppliers and more, have only strengthened as a result of COVID-19.

Alma Resort commands 30 hectares overlooking Vietnam's Cam Ranh's Long Beach.

Vietnam has been hailed a success story the world over for its handling of the pandemic. At the time of writing, there were still zero fatalities; a statistic the United States could only dream of.  As the Vietnamese government closed its borders and restricted movement internally, Alma temporarily closed from April 12 until May 31. Did we down tools and take some time out? No, we did the exact opposite. In fact, we were busier than ever.

We perceived our temporary closure in as positive a light as possible, as it afforded us a very unique opportunity we otherwise wouldn't have had. We used this valuable time to truly scrutinize and alter our dining concepts and our menus based on the initial things we learnt about our guests' preferences and habits from when we first opened late December 2019. Despite all of the research you can do before a resort's opening, there are always things you think will appeal to the guests that don't and vice versa.  It's much more difficult to alter and adapt your culinary landscape when you are saddled with the day-to-day operations of an open resort and overseeing your team's output. 

We reviewed all of our dining concepts and changed Atlantis restaurant's focus from Mediterranean cuisine to fresh and local seafood, as well as expanded Asiana restaurant's theme from Japanese to modern Asian.  We looked at not only every menu at all of our food and beverage outlets but each and every dish, determining what were sellers and what were not. We also took this time to undertake more training as well as refresher standard operating procedure courses.  As a result, we reopened on May 31 better and more productive than before.

Our work has not stopped there and we cannot afford to rest on our laurels. We will continue to scrutinize our product over and over again as this is crucial in our industry to not only survive but thrive. In the realm of food and beverage, it's always important to look at any situation in an optimistic light and to learn from it, pandemic or no pandemic.

In addition to sourcing local produce and supporting your local communities, and taking any opportunity possible to improve your dining concepts, another tried and true approach is that of diversifying the dining experience, within scale and reason of course. Alma is a 196-pavilion and 384-suite resort, affording us the scale to offer a rich culinary landscape. A total of 14 distinct food and beverage venues entice diners from outlets casual enough for fried chicken and gourmet burgers and refined enough for a grand piano.

Atlantis Restaurant's interior is bedecked with striking turquoise tiling complementing the surrounding azure waters and skies.

To provide some further context, our 'Alma Garden' beats at the heart of the resort, with live cooking stations that evoke a marketplace atmosphere, and a sprawling terrace that looks out to the 'Pool Bar' merged into the first of the 12 swimming pools cascading down to the beach. Alma Garden serves an extensive breakfast spread of Western and Asian favourites, as well as international gourmet dinners that change daily and include the likes of ocean-fresh seafood, steaming dim sum and sizzling barbecued meats.  'Asiana' restaurant brings modern Asian cuisine to Cam Ranh and highlights include classic Nigiri sushi platters, sashimi platters, dim sum and wok dishes.

With a vast deck for al fresco dining that sits above Alma's strand, 'Atlantis' specialises in fresh local seafood.  Alma's Italian trattoria 'La Casa' serves evening meals in Tuscan style. La Casa's Italian head chef Francesco Conzattu and his team combine authentic Italian ingredients with organic product to create a wide selection of classic Italian dishes including antipasti, fresh handmade pasta and bread made in the open kitchen.

In a bid to offer something to suit everyone's palette, Alma Food Court is a fun and happening culinary hub offering six different food outlets including An Nam selling classics from Vietnam's south to north, an American style food truck called Burger House offering gourmet burgers, Chicken 'n Go serving up chicken cooked in a Henny Penny fryer, gelato ice creamery Three Scoops, the French Bakery and Espresso Bar serving coffee, tea and freshly squeezed juice.

Asiana Restaurant specialises in modern Asian cuisine including classic Nigiri sushi platters, sashimi platters, dim sum and wok dishes.

The Alma Lounge is home to a cafe and bar, defined by flowing, curved open spaces and a view of the sea. As darkness falls, the resident pianist tickles the ivories of a grand piano, joining forces with a singer to perform a soundtrack of light jazz and popular tunes. With its sports bar theme, American Bar serves cocktails, fine wines, classic whiskies, ice-cold beers and more paired with light bites. Cocktails and other drinks are served at the Pool Bar's swim-up bar and cabanas, and at the Beach Bar's loungers.

Through offering a lot of diversity in terms of food offerings as well as different dining settings that each have their own ambiance, our aim is for our guests to never tire of our culinary scene and to keep coming back for more and more.  At the moment we have a solid Vietnamese guest base as we are reliant on the domestic travel market, who love, for example, the fresh local seafood at Atlantis but they also enjoy trying the Italian at La Casa and the modern Asian cuisine at Asiana. Culinary diversity not only keeps our current clientele happy; it also places us in good stead as things improve globally in regards to the pandemic and other markets open back up.

Atlantis Restaurant specialises in fresh, local seafood.  

We look forward to welcoming travellers from China, South Korea and other Asian countries, from Russia, Germany, the United Kingdom and other parts of Europe, as well as in Australia and North America and more; with all sorts of options for them all day and night long.

Diversification of your product also means experimenting in fun and playful ways with the overall dining experience.  We've introduced a floating breakfast experience that our guests love posting all over Instagram. We've just introduced our "Singing Waiters and Cooks" at La Casa restaurant.  Two nights a week, our Alma Choir, made up of 16 staff members, descend on La Casa and sing a total of four songs from their repertoire that includes all sorts of classics such as Rivers of Babylon, Dancing Queen, Mamma Mia as well as some great Vietnamese songs including Xinh Ti Viet Nam.  Wow, can they sing! The guests join in, singing and dancing too, and everyone has a fantastic time. Every Thursday night, we welcome fire dancers from Boracay in the Philippines to perform on the beach as people enjoy BBQ seafood at Atlantis. You chance upon some incredible things when you are really willing to experiment with your culinary offerings and experiences in the name of diversification.

The Alma Food Court is a fun and happening culinary hub with six different food outlets including an American style food truck called Burger House.

Finally, all of this diversification, in my humble opinion, needs to be based on a foundation of traditional cooking styles akin to the old days with a focus on fresh, seasonal ingredients and devoid of nasty, artificial chemicals. Alma prides itself on traditional cooking with natural ingredients in its fare. Personally, if I eat broccoli, I still want it to taste like broccoli. I want to taste the natural flavour of the broccoli and for it to taste good. It's important to use the wok in a proper way to bring out its natural flavour, with garlic, oil, herbs and proper seasoning; not artificial additives that compete with the taste of the broccoli and are bad for your health. A good chef knows how to use good ol' fashioned cooking techniques to bring out the best in the ingredients, and this is something that I don't think will ever change.

When I think of the food and beverage industry in the wake of the global pandemic, I think of that line Chrissie Hynde of the Pretenders sang: "Some things change, some stay the same".  

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We can be reached via telephone, email, or online at our contact page. When you visit our site we do not log any information regarding your domain or email address. Information Sharing: We do not share user information with any third parties other than via press release distribution as described below.

Hotel Newswire is a newswire service that distributes press releases on behalf of our users. If you decide to submit a press release for distribution through our system we will transmit your entire press release including any personal information therein contained to our media contacts and online distribution points including search engines. This is the only redistribution of your information that we engage in. Your submission of press releases through our system indicates consent with this policy. The information we collect during your registration process is used to notify users about updates to our service and inform users of any special events hosted by Hotel Newswire. This information is not shared with other organizations for commercial or non-commercial purposes.

Cookies: Our system requires the use of cookies to enable the user to log back into our website to access information from the newswire, without having to log in each time using the required username and password.

If you do not want to receive email from us in the future, please let us know by following instructions included in our communication with you. Users who supply us with telephone numbers online may receive telephone contact from us regarding their account, or informing them of new products and services available on the HotelExecutive website. If you do not wish to receive such telephone calls, please edit your account and remove your phone number from your account profile. This can be done from your user account menu.

Ad Servers: We do not partner with or have any relationship with any ad server companies. From time to time, we may use customer information for new uses not previously disclosed in our privacy notice. If our information practices change at any time, we will post the policy changes to our website to notify you of these changes and provide you with the ability to opt out of these new uses. If you are concerned about how your information is used, you should check back at our website periodically.

Upon request we provide site visitors with access to all information (including proprietary information) that we maintain about them. Users can access this information by logging in to their account.

Security: We always use industry-standard encryption technologies while transferring and receiving user data exchanged with our site. We have appropriate security measures in place in our physical facilities to protect against the loss, misuse, or alteration of information that we have collected from you on our site. We do not store credit card information in our systems.

If you feel that this site is not following its stated information policy, you may contact us.

Scott Lowe How to Successfully Navigate Hospitality Development Costs
  • By Scott Lowe, Chief Revenue Officer, The Beck Group

    • Hospitality development has always been a bit riskier typology and high-stakes endeavor, but the past year has underscored just how volatile the economics of design and construction have become. According to The Beck Group’s Summer 2025 Cost Report, the drivers of higher costs are neither singular nor short-term. Stubbornly high interest rates, inflation, tariffs on key construction materials like steel, aluminum and certain copper products, and shifting demand patterns are delivering a set of challenges for ground-up and renovation projects. Additionally, increased risk, consolidation of large capital, and scarcity of equity deployment are other factors that...

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Tony Fernandez Using Digital Solutions to Overcome Labor Crises and Enhance Efficiency
  • By Tony Fernandez, Chief Executive Officer & President, MTech Mobility

    • The hospitality industry has grappled with significant labor shortages in recent years, not only impacting businesses across the board but also creating severe challenges for many workers. Notably, the restaurant sector stands as a major employer in the U.S., with the National Restaurant Association reporting nearly 15 million individuals working within this industry. Staffing shortages have become increasingly severe, with many restaurants unable to fully staff their operations. In fact, the restaurant industry lost more than one million jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic, and recovery has been slow. The latest figures indicate that 81% of restaurant operators report facing staffing...

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Bonnie Knutson What if Alvin Toffler Ran a Hotel?
  • By Bonnie Knutson, Professor, The School of Hospitality Business/MSU

    • In his groundbreaking book, The Third Wave, Alvin Toffler painted a vivid portrait of a world in metamorphosis—a civilization shedding the rigidity of industrialism to embrace the fluid, fast-paced rhythm of the Information Age. He envisioned a society no longer defined by smokestacks and assembly lines, but by hyper-communication, data streams, decentralized power, and the rise of the prosumer—individuals who both produce and consume. In his view, the third wave was not just a technological shift; it was a cultural and psychological upheaval, where institutions, organizations, relationships, and identities would be re-imagined. Toffler foresaw a world of customization...

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Haemoon Oh Can Career Mobility Be a New Solution to Lodging Workforce Development?
  • By Haemoon Oh, Distinguished Professor, University of South Carolina

    • Do people consider the lodging industry a good place to build a long-term career? In response to the lodging industry’s ongoing concern about workforce development, a team of researchers from the University of South Carolina’s Hospitality and Tourism Management faculty recently completed an AHLA-funded project to develop an effective tool to aid in the industry’s workforce development and management. The tool is called a Career Mobility Checklist. It contains 21 factors that can be used to concisely audit how a lodging organization does in promoting employees’ career mobility, which has significant implications for employees’ organizational loyalty and the...

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Bendegul Okumus How Can Automation and AI Applications Help With Labor Shortages in Hotels?
  • By Bendegul Okumus, Professor, University of South Carolina School of Hospitality & Tourism Management

    • The hospitality industry faces a critical labor shortage that affects operations, service quality, and overall customer satisfaction. This growing challenge arises from a complex combination of economic, demographic, and social changes. Addressing this urgent issue is essential for stimulating the sector and ensuring the high standards of service that characterize the hospitality experience. Immigrants constitute over 20% of the U.S. restaurant and food service workforce. The National Restaurant Association and the Restaurant Law Center are closely monitoring upcoming changes to immigration policies to keep the industry informed and prepared. The US government has stepped up immigration restrictions, prompting...

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Alice Sherman Future-Proofing Hospitality: Rethinking Succession Planning
  • By Alice Sherman, Chief Executive Officer, HVS Executive Search

    • In hospitality, people are the product. Yet when it comes to planning for future leaders, the industry often drops the ball. According to research, 60% of companies lack any CEO succession plan, and only 14% believe they are doing it effectively. That is not just a talent issue but a strategic risk that can impact guest satisfaction, brand integrity, and operational stability. Succession planning is more than a contingency plan. It is a long-term investment that should be embedded into a company’s strategic DNA. Unfortunately, many hotel operators, especially those in family-owned and founder-led organizations, delay addressing it until a...

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Karthik Namasivayam Technology and Its Potential Impacts on Stress in Service Work
  • By Karthik Namasivayam, Professor & Director, The School of Hospitality Business, Broad College of Business, Michigan State University

    • Technology is everywhere! The rapid and pervasive inclusion of technology in various work processes has positive and negative impacts on employees, managers, and organizations. Since hospitality is synonymous with service, it is important to understand how technology may impact service processes. In this article I discuss stress in service work, how technology may change the nature of service work processes, possible outcomes, and discuss some ways organizations can respond. The American Psychological Association notes that stressful environments contribute to problems such as headaches, sleep disturbances, short temper, and difficulty concentrating. It can also cause depression, obesity, and heart...

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