How badgerifical is this? A restaurant where your table is an interactive space (projected from above) where you can browse the menu, place your order... use the "chef cam" to view inside the kitchen, keep track of group and individual totals and even choose your "tablecloth" design and play games either on your own or with the other diners.
I would be lying to you if I said we came here because the food sounded great. I had read an article about this "dining experience of the future" and could not wait to have a go. I do have a reputation for being a bit of a technophobe, but the appeal of ordering your food directly off the table top, without interaction from "a humble human" was too much to resist. At first I still found myself waiting or at least expecting service, but there is the beauty of it... they cannot rush you... because you decide when to place the order! As soon as you embrace the power of ordering the chef around without interference from the usual mediator, a whole world of opportunity opens up before you.
I found myself ordering more than I usually would and not keeping to the conventional pace of the meal. I could order mine without waiting for the other diners, and if I wanted another drink, I did not need to raise it as an item for discussion by the whole table, I had the power to simply do it!
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| The table of the future. |
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| Cherry tomatoes with ginger, chili and avocado. This was a delightful eastern twist on an Italian classic! |
One of the biggest surprises for me was when the food arrived. It was beautiful! All of it! Modern and elegant and really quite delicious! The cocktails were also a great find, and I could easily see how on a Friday night you might be in serious danger of getting quite drunk drinking cocktail after cocktail without trying to hail down a waiter (which on a weekend evening in a bar is like trying to get a taxi in the rain) and lose valuable time waiting between drinks. No maths at the end of the night either, regardless of you group size, sobriety or moral preference as the table "knows" what you ordered and your total bill.
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| Truffled marbled beef fillet. Another beautiful twist on a carpaccio this time. |
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| Duck with pancakes and hoisin sauce... no cucumber and spring onion though... instead a box of fragrant herb salad. |
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| "Vegetarian Lunch Box" Consisting of miso soup, pickles, edamame beans, rice and a vegetable curry for £14!!! |
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| Pandan macaroon, white chocolate and Yuzu mouse with candied Yuzu and homemade coconut and lemongrass ice cream. This was exquisite and I WILL have this again. What a badger! p.s those dots are the chocolate sauce, lol. |
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| The beautiful stone bar. |
The other wonderful thing was how beautiful and serene the restaurant was. The quality of everything was superb, from the onyx panels in the walls to the bamboos sprouting out of the ground. There is no missing the Japanese influence here. The clever use of sliding panels, and the sharp modern simplicity of the lines. Even the projectors were in funky hexagonal ceiling pods that added to the futuristic appeal of the place.
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| My trip towards the restrooms (which were also lovely). |
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| The sake cabinet. |
The most interesting thing that you realize about this new techy restaurant experience is how much of restaurant dining
culture is tied to service. The pace of your meal, the ordering in
rounds, and even the discussions around who will have what. Plates were
arriving at the table and I did not even know they had been ordered!
This style of dining (and the games!) definitely draws out an introverted sense of self and
pushes you back into a personal space where your dining choices
are not democratic and the idea of waiting on someone else to get your
order in is driven out by the emergence of one's own internal voice
saying "order it, order it now...".
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