At This Luxe Pune Retreat, Food Is the First Prescription
At Swastik Wellbeing, a luxury Ayurvedic retreat near Pune, they believe true wellness begins with the gut—and what lands on your plate is just as powerful as what happens on the therapy table.
A gut check has become the singularly most important aspect of wellness and lifestyle shifts in today’s hyper-conscious health community. If nothing else, it’s the battleground where nutritionists, gym trainers, dieticians, doctors, and even the stray self-help podcast compete for influence—each claiming their own route to digestive clarity along with metabolic peace and/or hormonal bliss. Today’s wellness is no longer restrained to yoga mats and juice cleanses; it’s an ever-expanding buffet of cryotherapy, ice baths, red light therapy, IV drips, and lymphatic drainage.
Longevity is the crux of the matter, with wellness often cast as the desirable byproduct. And yet, in the midst of this futuristic frenzy, a few sanctuaries are choosing to step back in time—while still keeping longevity at their core. They’re not shunning science, but re-embracing it in its oldest, most intuitive form: Ayurveda.
Swastik Wellbeing, which opened in late 2024, is one such sanctuary. Tucked away on the lush outskirts of Pune, this 51-acre retreat, resembling an out-worldly hobbit land, doesn’t just promise rejuvenation, but concentrates on digestion too. That was my foremost inflection point:
a deeper understanding of my own body and its relentless search for balance. At Swastik, gut health isn’t just a chapter in your treatment plan and the way they approach it? Through deeply disciplined, astonishingly gourmet Ayurvedic food.
It Starts with a Prayer
There’s a predictable rhythm to most wellness retreats—consultations, therapies, rituals, and winding down with a cup of herbal tea. Swastik Wellbeing follows some of that choreography, yes: you begin with a consultation with one of their Ayurvedic doctors, there are carefully designed therapies and even sleep rituals curated to your dosha. But what caught me off guard was what unfolded in the dining room. Every meal begins with a prayer: a gentle invocation to coax the agni (digestive fire). This resets the mind and honours the act of nourishment itself. This micro-moment is the palate’s palate- cleanser. As Dr. Nitin Nyati, Chairman & MD of Nyati Group and Founder of Swastik Wellbeing, puts it: “At Swastik, it is not just about eating—food is celebrated as medicine. From seed to serving, every step is guided by the philosophy of healing. We honour the source, the farmer, and the integrity of each ingredient. Here, food is not just fuel—it is a pathway to harmony between body, mind, and soul.”
Unlike many retreats I’ve visited, where the food experience feels like an afterthought—or worse, a bland prescription—Swastik pivots the narrative entirely. Here, at Rasa (the main indoor dining space) and Sama (its breezy outdoor sibling), food becomes a conscious indulgence. Meals are prix fixe, three a day with a surprise high-tea to quell those 4 pm hunger pangs. Each course allows for choice: two options across a structured progression of appetisers, soup, mains, and dessert. Whether you’re on a fully satvik plan or navigating dietary conditions like diabetes, the food is never compromise. It’s beautifully plated, correctly portioned, and elegant—inviting you to eat first with your eyes.
Food is Medicine
If there’s one thing Swastik flips on its head, it’s the assumption that Ayurvedic food is bland and subdued. The meals are designed as curated tasting menus you’d find easily at an upscale restaurant. The ragi pizza, for instance. Wood-fired to perfection, with a crisp base and deeply savoury toppings. If not on a restrictive protocol, the staff is more than happy to offer seconds. (Seconds! Of pizza! At an Ayurvedic retreat!). Desserts were even more surprising. A decadent brownie made with sweet potato, balanced with dark chocolate to deepen the flavour and ditch the refined sugar. A saffron-scented sago pudding layered with nuts and gently sweetened with jaggery is pure bliss.
As Chef Arvind Joshi explains, “Our seekers’ (what they christen the guests) journey should be blissful, and nourishing food plays a vital role in helping them undergo the healing therapies.”
His kitchen works far from a static menu, it is tailored to individual constitutions and continuously adjusted based on how treatments are influencing each person’s body and mind.
After each meal, a warm digestive tonic of caraway seeds and fennel is served. It’s gently cleansing, and a practice one can easily adapt to make you realise the system is holistic. Later, over lunch, Chef Joshi told me something that stuck. “The real challenge,” he said, “was to create a harmony between authenticity and modern indulgence. To transform simple, dosha-balancing meals into a fine dining experience—without losing their soul.”
He goes on to share a veritable example: the Chlorophyll Roll, a vibrant, grain-free vegetable roll served on a bed of spinach purée and finished with a carrot reduction. “What could have been a plain, cooked dish of greens becomes a visually arresting, nourishing meal tailored to each seeker’s dosha,” he adds. It’s a form of eating that aligns your body and mind, and makes you want to bring those habits home.
A Retreat for your Gut
By day two at Swastik, you start noticing it, not in a detox-has-landed kind of way, but a defiant gut change. Meals feel lighter. Your body feels more regulated. The meals begin after a Body Composition Analysis (BCA) and Heart Rate Variability (HRV) test sit alongside a Prakruti-Vikruti analysis, which, in Ayurvedic terms, maps your constitutional blueprint against your
current state of imbalance. Your Agni (digestive fire), your Ama (toxins), your stress levels, are all considered before a single dish is planned for you. “If someone’s Agni is low,” Dr. Milind Salunke — Director of Wellness explains, “we may begin with manda or peya—light, soupy preparations that rekindle the metabolic flame.” You get a roadmap which slowly calibrates your body to eat better, digest better and feel better.
They follow a structure so specific, it’s liberating. Six tastes—sweet, sour, salty, bitter, pungent, astringent—each make an appearance in meals. And beneath those familiar categories are layers:
the virya (potency of the food), vipaka (post-digestive effect), and prabhava (a food’s inexplicable, almost alchemical nature). These aren’t merely meant for spiritual ideologies but are complete sensory and metabolic truths in each ingredient.
Dr. Salunke puts it best: “Ayurvedic nutrition is not about restriction—it’s about precision and personalisation. Once balance is restored and Agni is strong, restrictions become minimal.” That explains the ease with which you eat here. There’s no white-knuckling your way through steamed vegetables and abstinence. The meals are vibrant, hearty and supremely celebratory. And the result? You leave each meal not just full—but fed.
