Here's to you, Dr. Atkins

By Ginny Chien

Feb. 5, 2004 12 AM PT

Special to The Times

Cut out pasta? Sure. But cocktail hour? Some things are sacred.

Bartenders -- catering to the masses of Atkins, South Beach and Zone dieters prohibited from ingesting too many sugars and starches -- are retooling their concoctions. Sweet mixers and simple syrup are out; green tea and sugar substitutes are golden.

Lot 1224, the restaurant and lounge inside the Loews Beverly Hills Hotel, launched a “NO Carbtails” menu over the holidays with drinks such as the Egg NOg, made with soy milk and the sugar substitute Splenda. While traditional eggnog might contain as many as 30 grams of carbohydrates, the restaurant’s version has less than five. High-protein devotees also can try a Green TeaNO with lime juice and tea (2.5 grams), or a Berry NOlada with fresh raspberries and Splenda simple syrup (5.5 grams).

“Hotel guests are surprised; they ask how we do it, what the difference is,” says Sergio Patrina, the restaurant’s food and beverage director. “But the locals know all about the low-carb stuff.”

One such Angeleno is Burke Stuart, an actor who’s been following an Atkins diet for the last eight months. On a recent visit to Koi on La Cienega Boulevard, he ordered the Green Tea Delite, made with green tea, Midori and shochu, a distilled Japanese liquor. It has less than 4 grams of carbs. That’s been Stuart’s drink of choice of late, but he could also opt for the sushi lounge’s shochu lemon drop, a diet version that has almost no carbs.

“There doesn’t seem to be much room for alcohol with these low-carb diets,” Stuart says. “It’s not like I’m a big drinker, but you don’t want to feel like you can’t go out and have a drink or two. There wasn’t really a good alternative before.”

Contrary to popular belief, hard alcohols such as vodka and whiskey contain no carbohydrates, according to registered dietitian Tobi Levine. “Hard alcohol is metabolized as a fat,” says Levine, who practices out of Sports Club/L.A. in West L.A.

It’s mixers that usually inflict the carb damage. A whiskey sour can have up to 12 grams from the sour mix, and a pina colada clocks in at more than 30 grams. Compare that to a straight vodka martini, which has less than 1 gram. But in lounges across the city, apple martinis and other mixed interpretations are hot commodities. The ounce of triple sec in a cosmopolitan contains 12 grams of carbs.

Oliver, the Dodd Mitchell-designed cafe and lounge inside the new Sports Club/L.A. in Beverly Hills, hopes to have a diet-friendly solution to the flavored martini. The soon-to-open restaurant, owned by Linq’s Mario Oliver, will offer three renditions of the classic cocktail: a wheat grass martini and two made with the fruity health drink Glaceau Vitamin Water: the Power C (dragonfruit) and Focus (kiwi-strawberry) varieties. Each has less than 3 grams of carbs.

“Since October, we’ve been running a little express portion of our restaurant, and people are always inspecting the labels, looking to see what the carb content is,” says food and beverage manager Mark Farrell. “We knew we had to offer something like this.”

Rick Calamaro, co-owner of the Cuban bistro Paladar and its sister bar Nacional in Hollywood, saw the demand too. “Just being in the business for so long, I heard a lot of people who were like, ‘My diet is perfect, it’s just my drinking when I go out,’ ” he says. “So we tailored some drinks to be a little more conducive to their diets, and it’s just been growing and growing.”

Ask for a low-carb beverage at Paladar and your server will likely suggest the Cuba Libre Light with rum and Diet Coke, or the Atkins mojito with vodka and just a pinch of Equal. Both have about 1 gram of carbs. “The mojito tastes almost the same as the normal one,” says Anna Baik, an ad exec who’s been on and off of the South Beach Diet for the last few months. “You can kind of tell it’s NutraSweet or whatever, but I’d order it again. Might as well, if it’s better for you.”

Substituting Coca-Cola with Diet Coke is nothing new, but packaging it as a low-carb alternative is. Miller Brewing Co. has started marketing Miller Lite as a carbohydrate-conscious option, and Anheuser-Busch has blitzed airwaves with spots for its low-carb Michelob Ultra. (In other beer news, Coors will soon launch Aspen Edge, a premium label targeting said dieters.)

All of this raises the question: Do these drinks really make a difference? “To be honest, a regular martini with less calories is probably better for you than any low-carb cocktail with more calories,” Levine says. “It’s this simple: The fewer calories you eat or drink, the more weight you’re going to lose.” In other words, if you’re in a crunch to shed pounds, just stick to water.

Koi’s Green Tea Delite

2 ounces Shochu

(a distilled Japanese liquor)

1/2 cup brewed green tea

2 tablespoons Midori

1. Combine the Schochu, green tea and Midori in a cocktail shaker with 3 to 4 ice cubes.

2. Shake and pour into a serving glass. Garnish with raspberries.

Carbohydrates: Less than 4 grams

Light drinks

NO Carbtails menu

Lot 1224, Loews Beverly Hills Hotel, 1224 S. Beverwil Drive,

Beverly Hills, (310) 772-2999