Good Lord, Cirque du Soleil Performers Eat Really Well

You might know Cirque du Soleil because you ’ve seen one of itsseven Vegas showswhile drinking a margarita the size of it of your head . But you might not know that Cirque has a number of touring shows circumnavigating the globe at any moment . One of those isTORUK - The First Flight , a show inspire by the art - house flickAvatar . And while all the gymnastic effort in this Cirque show are sensational , I was more interested in three things : how do you feed all the the great unwashed who exercise on the show ? What do they eat ? And most significantly – is it any good ?

So whenTORUKstopped by Denver ’s Pepsi Center one July weekend , I went into the intestine of the arena to speak to two of the performers – and the chefs who keep them fed – about what they eat before and after pull Olympian - level feat of potency five nights a calendar week . turn out , feed what add up to a traveling international city is pretty complicated .

Traveling with this show is a serious grind

Showbiz is n’t as glamorous asVinny Chasemade it appear . TORUKkicked off its tour in November 2015 , and the casting and crew have beenon the roadever since … and on that road , they ’re roll with a 48 ft hand truck with 10 ft of refrigerate space pile full of ovens , burners , tables , utensils , and non - perishables . All that kitchen gear comes in ready to hand , since everyone works for 10 - 12 straight weeks at a time ( August include stops in Chicago , Indianapolis , Birmingham , and Nashville ) , mean nobody has metre to race out and seize a covetedTriple Double Crunchwrap . Luckily , they ’ve got everything they need under the tents , and can somehow do better than Fourth Meal . Somehow .

The kitchen basically caters the equivalent of a huge wedding every day

The menus change daily , and incorporate local dishes from wherever they ’re performing . In Denver , that meant bison sirloin , local lamb , and " Mile gamey " pork . About 90 - 100lbs of protein are dish out up per meal . But not all the ravisher have lean meat or seafood – since some of the performers have dietary restriction ( there ’re a few vegan , vegetarian , dairy farm - free , and gluten - devoid folks ) , the catering crew stimulate trusted to whip up something for everyone .

A crew of five chefs , one of whom has been on the route with different Cirque shows forsix to seven yearsnow , is responsible for for cooking tiffin and dinner each twenty-four hours . I stop by on tapas twenty-four hour period , so the chefs mop up up a long ton of dissimilar food alternative for lunch . lease ’s see what was cooking .

Fancy ahi tuna on tortilla chips

The performers know it when seafood ’s on the carte .

Prosciutto-wrapped asparagus

It ’s like Sir Francis Bacon - wrapped edible asparagus , but fancier .

Watermelon + feta salad

I ate a set of this , and am sorry if any performers did n’t get any because of me . ( But not really sorry . )

If you want to eat healthy…

If the performers ca n’t get hold anything on the snack counter they want to eat at lunch , the salad saloon always has 22 element , a suite of rotating planetary house - made fecundation , and revolve lettuces ( lettuci ? ) . Lunch is served at noon and dinner party at 5:30pm – a full 2.5 hours before the show kicks off . That gives the performers plenty of sentence to digest before lead around on stage and twirling in taut outfits . If the salad bar is n’t enough , there are also revolve loco and dry fruit , two fresh soups , a juice bar with a Vitamix and brisk fruit / veggie to throw in , and a rotating dessert bar .

… or not so healthy

Turkey , ham , and salami are available in the sandwich bar , along with this fancy panini pressure . This sandwich in particular belongs to one of the performers – a 33 - year - one-time Hungarian aerialist and porter ( as in , he flies aroundandthrows hoi polloi in the air ! ) named Viktor Franyo . rent ’s assemble him , and also compare his muscle to those of a diary keeper who also has large muscle !

If you look like that, you can eat whatever you want

This is just to show you what Franyo looks like next to another super - strong guy cable ( me ) . He ’s been withTORUKfor about a year – it ’s his first Cirque show , but he ’s been a carnival performer since he was 11 . He even go to carnival schoolhouse ! Since he woke up late on this day , he was eat breakfast at twelve noon .

Looking like he does , I expected him to tell me about his high-pitched - protein , low - carb dieting , but mostly he tries to use up healthy and does n’t vex about count calories . And yeah , it help that he works out most days . It also turns out that project people in the air and fly around for a survive suntan enough calories that he can eat whatever he wants . He loves the food on tour , and read it beat the Amerind cuisine he ate while performing in a different Dubai - ground show .

Sometimes you eat oatmeal in a hotel room

Nick Beyeler is an aerialist who plays a Na’vi denizen , and front like he might be related to The Situation fromJersey Shore(he ’s not ) . Beyeler , a 41 - class - onetime Swiss who eats a healthy Mediterranean dieting , only has 5.7 % consistence fat – to put that in perspective , manlike marathon blue runner commonly have between 5 - 11 % . Even though the dining lobby is open in the mornings for breakfast on performance day , he makes oatmeal in his hotel elbow room and locomote with an espresso machine .

While he do it when the catering crowd cooks fresh alimentary paste dishes , he still misses high - quality cheeseflower and coffee from Switzerland on the road , so when his mama visits him , she makes sure to convey some . He ’s a super - decent guy , so I ’m not choke to say anything about him being a momma ’s male child , mostly because his background is in contemporary dancing . Oh , and martial artistry .

Home is where the taste buds are

I ate much of what ’s pictured on this plate here , and it was bloody good . I ’d say the quality here is somewhere between upscale catering at a marriage and what you ’d find at a nice eating place . No marvel the cast and bunch love the food .

But sometimes the catering gang goes above and beyond the food present here . Like many Hungarians , Franyo loves goulash , and he says the chef have been overnice enough to make him that and other Hungarian dishes . He ’s not the only one missing a gustatory sensation of dwelling house . One of the chefs also told me that after they break up down whole chickens , they save the liver and gizzards , fry them up , and alert the four Europeans in the cast . The Czechs , Hungarians , and Romanians revalue the gesture .

After all , in a job where it ’s easy to lose path of which metropolis you ’re in at any have moment , it ’s always nice to have a taste of home plate .

Cirque du Soleil catering food