What use are beautiful rooms and enticing pools when all you can order in the restaurant are the side dishes?
It was this question that led vegetarian travel writers Karen and Thomas Klein and Peter Haunert to create the new coffee table book Veggie Hotels: The Joy of Vegetarian Vacations (teNeues).
The book showcases more than 50 hotels from around the world where guests get stunning facilities but can also ‘enjoy new, creative, vegetarian, and vegan cuisines that will even satisfy the most selective gourmets’.
Pictured is Salt of Palmar in Belle Mare, Mauritius. According to the book’s authors there are ‘just a few steps from the hotel room to the beach’ and ‘the restaurant focuses on fresh products, local cultivation, and plant-based dishes’
This image shows the stunning BeingSattvaa in Bali, where ‘one is connected to the tropical surroundings even in the rooms’. The authors add: ‘The pavilions and villa set in a lushly overgrown Balinese garden filled with the island’s native plants make guests feel like they are living in a treehouse’
Das Alpenhaus Gasteinertal in Salzburg, Austria, is described as a ‘four-star sport, spa, and health hotel’ in the book. It’s home to a 21,500-square-foot (2,000-square-meter) wellness area and a restaurant that ‘serves an array of Austrian and Gastein specialties, healthy wellness cuisine, and vegetarian and vegan creations’
The book explains that Cal Reiet Holistic Retreat in Mallorca is a ‘magnificent holistic retreat, a wellness refuge where mindfulness in body and soul comes before all else’. It continues: ‘High-quality vegetarian and vegan meals, filled with vitality, are an important part of this goal, food that cleanses the body and reinvigorates it with vibrant health. Many of the ingredients used are therefore harvested daily from the hotel garden or purchased from local farmers’
There are hotels in the book from the four corners of the globe – from the UK to Thailand and from Canada to Switzerland – and the authors pay homage to each in turn with a set of striking images and a description that details the property’s history and philosophy, as well as its facilities.
For example, the Cal Reiet Holistic Retreat in Mallorca is featured, and the description for it reads: ‘Built in 1881 as the summer residence of a prosperous family from Barcelona, this delightful estate is only a few minutes walk from the heart of the picturesque town of Santanyí.
‘When the current owners, Petra and Henning Bensland, bought the property in 2012 and restored it from the ground up, they started out with a clear vision: to create a center for personal growth that simultaneously met the strictest standards of a first-class boutique hotel.’
And the full spectrum of hotel types is represented within the book’s covers.
On one page you’ll find a spa hotel like BeingSattvaa in Bali, where ‘one is connected to the tropical surroundings even in the rooms’. The authors add: ‘The pavilions and villa set in a lushly overgrown Balinese garden filled with the island’s native plants make guests feel like they are living in a treehouse.’
A few pages later you’ll find a hotel like the 15th-century mansion hotel Schlossgut Oberambach in Austria, where the book’s authors reveal that ‘the wireless network is switched off after 11pm’, and that ‘shielded electrical cables offer a radiation-free atmosphere, paving the way for restful sleep’.
Pictured is The Stanford Inn by the Sea in California. The book’s authors say it ‘is a hotel like no other… the only purely vegan hotel and resort in the United States’. Its restaurant, The Ravens, ‘is known throughout the country’. And the accommodation comprises ‘elegant rooms with cozy fireplaces’
The 15th-century mansion hotel Schlossgut Oberambach in Bavaria, Germany. The book’s authors explain that ‘the wireless network is switched off after 11pm’ and that ‘shielded electrical cables offer a radiation-free atmosphere, paving the way for restful sleep’
Naturhotel LechLife is located in the Tyrol region of Austria. Its club sandwich with spelt seitan and wasabi mayo recipe is featured in the book
As an extra bonus for foodie readers, the book is peppered with beautifully illustrated recipes provided by the hotels listed.
There are recipes for everything from raw food pizzas and tofu chickpea omelettes to golden flax seed patties on a bed of rhubarb and spinach and nettle ravioli.
The book’s authors are also keen to highlight that there are more draws to these hotels than just their vegetarian menus.
Ecocirer Healthy Stay is in Soller in the north of Mallorca. The book enthuses: ‘Between orchards, orange, almond, and olive trees, the power of the land and all the organic ingredients it yields — the experience of staying here is heavenly and therapeutic’
Pictured is one of the vegetarian dishes available at Fivelements Retreat in Bali. The book reveals: ‘Many of the dishes served in the prize-winning Sakti Dining Room are made from vital raw foods, which are especially nutritious and filled with healing power (shakti)’
The Vale de Moses is located ‘deep in the Portuguese mountains, scattered with olive and madrone trees, vibrant green fields, rugged mountain slopes, and gentle streams that wind through the valley’. Pictured is the lunch spread
The authors explain that the hotels ‘have much more to offer than just a healthy diet – they provide everything that does a body, mind, and spirit good: from cooking classes and holistic wellness packages to individual health and prevention programs’.
And many of the hotels ‘dedicate themselves to protecting the environment and climate’.
The book adds: ‘They conserve resources and use green energy sources – their kitchens process primarily regional and seasonal organic products and work closely with mainly local companies and farmers.’
The book has been published by teNeues. Visit www.teneues.com. The authors of the book also run the websites www.veggie-hotels.com and www.vegan-welcome.com, which list more than 500 other vegetarian and vegan-friendly hotels around the world.
Veggie Hotels – The Joy of Vegetarian Vacations is published by teNeues. Visit www.teneues.com