This virtual reality dining experience is trippy — and might be the future of restaurants
The exhibit, by Italian artist Mattia Casalegno in partnership with restaurateur Roni Mazumdar and chef Chintan Pandya of New York restaurants Rahi and Adda, raises questions that linger long after you experience it: Was that a meal or performance art? Is this the future of dining out? And an even more fundamental one: What is eating all about, anyway?
Your hands appear as strange, robotic appendages that wiggle unfamiliarly as you move them. Look down, and your legs have disappeared.
The food that arrives on floating platters resembles nothing you’ve ever ingested — that is, unless you treat science fairs as buffets. Tiny orbs circulate some bites, others look like spiky sea urchins — but such forms defy what lands on the tongue.
Casalegno, a native of Italy, was inspired by the “Futurist Cookbook,” a 1932 manifesto in which the Italian avant-garde reimagined cuisine and its sensory components. Whereas the Futurists incorporated perfume into meals and favored food in sculptural form, Casalegno turned to the medium of virtual reality to upend the experience of eating — divorcing the sense of taste from that of sight.
Davis hopes the exhibit — and VR dining generally — offers more than just a novel outing for bored eaters looking for the latest gimmick. “I don’t want people to be so tired with the restaurant experience that it’s like we have to poke them,” he says. “Like, ‘Oh, we’ve done that, let’s eat in a balloon’ or something. I really want people to look at food differently.”
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