As you sit at your table to begin your meal, the tabletop transforms before your eyes and a 3D projection of a miniature chef appears and seems to start cooking the dish that is soon to appear on your plate. This is Le Petit Chef, a novel experience available at hotels and highend restaurants from Brighton, UK, to Sao Paolo, Brazil, that uses 3D projection mapping to involve diners in an immersive storytelling experience.
Or perhaps you are taking your seat at Kitchen Theory, a gastronomic design studio in London, UK, led by chef Jozef Youssef, as you prepare for a multi-sensory dining experience using virtual reality (VR), soundscapes, lighting and aroma to explore the relationship between the brain and flavor.
This is a pioneering journey into the field of gastrophysics, where the science of the senses meets the dining experience. Both are examples of high-end dining’s take on the experience economy – a growing concept that suggests people who dine out are looking beyond the quality of the food and service to have a unique and memorable experience.
The concept is borne out by data from a 2026 report by OpenTable, which suggests that more than 60% of Americans now see dining out as a treat rather than a regular habit, and they crave something carefully crafted and personalized that stands out from everyday dining. Gen Z and Millennials particularly desire an immersive dining experience. The same report shows a 46% increase in experiential dining bookings year-on-year, with chef tables, tasting menus, pop-ups, and themed nights increasingly popular. Clearly, technology has a big role to play in delivering something exceptional in terms of dining experience.
“After Covid, as people started to dine out again and spend money, they expected good service, then they also wanted a nice environment, then they wanted a bit of a show like a steak on fire next to the table,” says Ken Schwartz FCSI, president of SSA Foodservice Design + Consulting. “In some cases, it is just about wanting an experience because of the need for stimulation or to impress someone like a partner, a client, or a colleague. Operators may have good food and a good restaurant, but people are asked what else they can do.”
Beyond the gimmicks
There are so many ways for foodservice operators to create novel experiences, but it is a skill to know what is gimmicky and what will become a lasting concept to which people will return time and again. Chefs and restaurant owners the world over are using the power of their imagination to come up with some truly creative ways to leverage new technology in the pursuit of a memorable experience.
At Inamo, an Asian-fusion restaurant in London, menus are projected onto the table. Guests can navigate with a touch sensor and push virtual buttons to order. The driver is not only to deliver novelty, but also to free up staff time to socialize more with customers. Diners can also watch a video of chefs preparing their food, play a table-top video game of battleships, or browse local information.
In Shanghai, China, Ultraviolet is an exclusive ten-seat restaurant that creates a multi-sensory experience by synchronizing bespoke lighting, wall projections, 360-degree audio, and aromas to accompany each dish as it is served. With table-top videos, scent diffusers and a high-tech speaker system, the restaurant creates a bespoke experience for each of the 20 dishes it serves, be it a sunrise, a rainforest or a thunderstorm among other meticulously controlled atmospheres.
Alchemist restaurant in Copenhagen, Denmark, meanwhile, has a huge planetarium-style dome in which much of its 50-course tasting menu is served while laser projectors create a 360-degree visual experience accompanied by synchronized surround sound. Chef Rasmus Munk has set out to transcend traditional dining by creating a fully immersive culinary journey that lasts more than six hours.
But a novel experience could be anything from the unique experience of drinking bubble tea, the theater of having diners cook their own food – as happens at Parrillan in London through the Korean tradition of grilling at the table – or hoisting diners 100ft in the air with a crane as happens with the purpose-built, 22-seat Sky Table at Dinner in the Sky, which has held more than 5,000 events across the world.
“You all sit at a table and they raise you up on a crane so you are dangling while you eat,” explains Brett Daniel FCSI, project manager at US consultancy Camacho. “The technology is simple; you just need a lot of insurance. I would devise keeping things simple and highlight the things you do really well without a dozen other things competing for attention. If something is overcomplicated it is expensive to maintain.”
At Taste Film, the experience is more about a tailored experience than technology. To create an immersive cinematic dining experience, iconic films are shown while a multi-course meal is served. At key moments, relevant dishes appear. Think Pulp Fiction with “a tasty burger” or a vanilla milkshake paired with the relevant scenes in the movie, or perhaps a blood-spill frozen margaritas and Cajun-butter seafood boil served during Jaws.
“I do think it is novelty and gimmicky sometimes,” adds Daniel. “A projection of a tiny chef on your table is certainly an experience, but you won’t go back to that multiple times. Or dining in the dark, eating with your hands and feeling around may be a unique thing that you do only once. The more repeatable experiences are live cooking demonstrations, or cooking on a wood-fired grill.”
Step into the senses
As Ultraviolet, Kitchen Theory and others are proving, multi-sensory elements are powerful tools. The process of eating involves multiple senses simultaneously. Listening to certain frequencies can prime specific areas in the brain before food touches your tongue. For example, a high-pitched violin melody triggers the expectation of a sweet flavor to the palate, which psychologically alters how the flavor is experienced.
Charles Spence, head of the Crossmodal Research Laboratory at the Department of Experimental Psychology at Oxford University, is the author of The Perfect Meal, which examines the elements that contribute to a diner’s experience of a meal and how each sense contributes to their overall experience. The principal focus is not on flavor perception, but on the non-food and beverage factors that have a powerful influence.
“We have seen the experience economy emerge in retail and it appeals to the younger generation’s quest for novelty, so technological interaction with food is a logical next step,” he explains. “People are using technology to create an atmosphere. Chef Jozef Youssef, the founder of Kitchen Theory, is projection mapping of the sea floor onto the table, and Alchemist’s massive dome is a projecting screen over the dining space.”
“Sonic seasoning is a oncept that we first tried in 2012 in London,” he adds. “A glass of whisky paired with a smoky scent changes the taste experience. Some things can be very performative and draw your attention; others can be subtle changes to improve and curate the dining experience. It can be as simple as not serving food in hospitals on red trays as that has been shown to make people eat less.”
Sonic seasoning has already transcended the laboratory and has moved into the food and hospitality sector. At the higher end, Heston Blumenthal’s Sound of the Sea is a famous multi-sensory dish served at his restaurant, The Fat Duck, with sounds of the ocean playing to enhance the flavor of seafood. In some chain restaurants, curated audio soundtracks have been devised to guide customer’s mood, make them linger – or the opposite – or enhance the taste experience.
Tell a simple story
For some, the most engaging dining experience does not necessarily need lots of digital technology. Sometimes screens filled with immersive imagery are less likely to encourage a return visit than a simple and engaging story about the food, the restaurant, or the concept.
“What is it that people are craving?” asks Giorgia Lardner FCSI, senior design consultant at Cooper8 Ltd in the UK. “What brings people out of their houses to eat? It is so expensive now that it has to be an experience, and before Covid there was a big surge towards communal dining as a push back against the food industry and technology, just as the Gothic revival was a push back against industry, romanticizing medieval culture. Covid brought back an epidemic of loneliness, so now people want connection and not technology, so we are seeing open kitchens, communal dining and the experience of eating together.”
Certainly, much of the high-tech dining experience is happening at the high end. Sublimotion in Ibiza, where guests can enjoy a three-hour multi-sensory culinary show with a 20-course tasting menu, VR, laser mapping, and 360-degree projection, is the world’s most expensive restaurant, with SubliMotion dinner costing around €2,000 per person.
“People often want good service and authentic, possibly local food, and a degree of connection and authenticity,” adds Lardner. “They want to know where the food has come from, so telling stories about the provenance of the food and why it has been chosen is important. Although innovation is important, experience is not all about flashy technology, but about a concept that is consistent and where every aspect feeds into the storytelling.”
“Technology has some part to play, but it is not the whole story, just an entry point,” agrees FCSI Associate Jespher Millano, founder and director of año Restaurant & Bar Consulting in The Philippines.
“People might be attracted to the technology that a restaurant or bar adopts, but it is more about the overall experience – the food, the interior design, the service. I believe we can adapt to automation, AI or anything else, but we must always balance it with the human aspect. This is still a people industry, and diners will interact with servers.”
Schwartz relates a prime example of something subtle that can transform guest experience. While at a hotel in Cannes for a conference, he ordered sparkling water from the beach club restaurant. The server came, poured it, then brought a stunningly presented tray of sliced lemon, lime, and mint to go with the water.
“It was beautifully curated, like a piece of art,” he explains. “It was just a little extra to jazz up the experience and make it memorable. How often do you remember ordering a bottle of sparkling water?”
“There are different platforms for storytelling,” adds Daniel. “Sustainability is really good in terms of a story and it will be less of a cuss word in the future. There may be more initiative around lab-grown meat or plant-based alternatives, or even compact farming environments tracked by AI so restaurants can grow their own seasonings or herbs and control the growth of some of their own ingredients. AR and VR are more gimmicky things, and handing guests a VR headset to put on while they are eating is not very practical.”
Get back-of-house right
The story and the environment are important to the dining experience, but if the food or the service is poor, the experience will be bad. It is probably more important to get things behind the scenes right if you want to create the ideal experience.
“The most important thing is knowing your customer base and understanding who you want to attract, then you can look at technology to support the concept – it may be that gimmicky things work,” says Lardner. “Sometimes the newness is part of the experience, but it may not last as a long-term concept. It may be better to consider getting ePOS technology, data collection, and back-of-house equipment on point so you can focus on staff interactions. The hidden technology that supports the dining experience may be more important.”
Interactive menus, voice activated self-service kiosks, scent diffusers, laser projections on ceilings and dozens of other technologies will have their place, and some will make their way from cutting edge to the core of foodservice. Nevertheless, the core elements of the dining experience – the food and the service – remain the must-haves for any successful operation that wants guests to come back time and again.
Jim Banks
