I got my first multisensory meal experience.
Imagine not just eating, but eating while you get a story about the products you’re tasting. You may tell me: "well, it’s something common nowadays; we tend more and more to educate people on what they eat". Now, imagine that this story is not told by someone, but by a movie projection on the walls, on the table, with the help of lights and music while you ‘re seating and eating. Do you still find it common?
People from the field know probably the EL SOMNI project from the Rocas Brothers (ranked best chef in the world in 2015 by San Pellegrino and in 2013 by the magazine Restaurant). This multisensorial diner project was designed a few years ago and the first time I saw the trailing, I told myself: this is the kind of experience I would like to design later.
So when I heard that the brother of Ferran Adria ( El Bulli) and the Roca Bros contributed to a new gastronomic experience between meal and visual theme park, I decided to go.
Finding Opera Samfaina is not so easy.
This pop up restaurant is located in the basement of an opera house (Teatro Liceu). When you enter there, you feel like in a hidden. I guess that if you don’t know about it, you would not even enter. The customer journey starts with a drink at the Vermouth bar and proceeds following a specific path. To make it possible, the space has been divided in several areas. Each area corresponds to a theme/mood and each area is more crazy than the other ones. Actually all the spaces have been designed for entertainment with a twist of education. The atmosphere is surreal. There are animations, everywhere, your eyes keep catching new details, your brain is always solicited. In such a context, the food becomes a lower percentage of the whole experience. You may enter with the objective of eating, but you go out with the idea of a unique experience and conceptual approach to tell to your friends.
Going to Barcelona soon ? You should go and check. Plus the price is really good deal for the overall experience.
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