Green lettuce, black beans and grilled chicken would certainly be a healthy way to start off any salad - especially if it's in a fast food operation. But at Fresh D'Lite, a new concept in the Geneva Commons Shopping Center, the entire menu was built around healthy eating.
"The premise is we made meals you crave, healthy. Usually meals you crave quite often are high fat, sodium," said owner Paul Chaudery. "The dressings, the salsa, the meat marination; most of these usually come prepared. That's where the fat and sodium levels go high. Because of that, we cut the fat sodium, I would say more than half."
"First, you do by making as much fresh as possible. Literally this restaurant is all raw ingredients coming through the back door," he said.
Those raw ingredients get turned into salads like the tostada grilled chicken salad, with avocados, tomatoes and cheese.
Besides a healthy intake of salads, Fresh D'Lite also serves garlic shrimp tacos, served on corn tortillas with fresh cilantro and Spanish rice. A barbecued chicken sandwich is served on focaccia, and the paninis, like all items on the menu - come with a choice of healthy sides like fruit or pita chips, rather than french fries. Eliminating the fryer is a crucial step, of course, but some dairy is also omitted.
"Fryer, butter, cream, batter and freezer is almost not there. That's for like unusual things. We believe in only refrigerated fresh food," he said.
While Fresh D'Lite has been tweaking the concept over the past year, their eventual goal is to expand.
Fresh D'Lite
1402 Commons Dr., Geneva
630-208-0104
http://www.freshdlite.com
