Clean Streak

Don’t let its pastural locale deceive you; the spa at L’Albereta’s Chenot method is a hardcore detox plan like no other.

- Anna Pasternak

In Europe, detox devotees fall into two camps: Mayr versus Merano. Superfans of Austrian doctor-slash scientist F. X. Mayr make their annual pilgrimage to the snow-blanketed Alpine lakes to follow this century-old process of fasting, glugging bitter waters, and applying hay-flower-filled liver compresses with a focus on gut health. But there’s another, equally potent program with its own committed votaries: the cult of Chenot.

Frenchman Henri Chenot, now 76, is the inventor and figurehead of the self-coined ‘biontology’ health system. After four decades of research into biology, anthropology, philosophy, Chinese medicine and naturopathy, Chenot devised his namesake detox in the late nineties. If Mayr is all Kneipping, pill-popping (supplements, vitamins, amino acids), and endless chewing of spelt bread, then biontology is massages, mud baths, and exquisite fine dining. This restorative blend of science and sybaritism eventually took off with wellness warriors and the overweight alike, when a Chenot spa popped up in Azerbaijan in 2016. Still, Italy remains the mothership.