Mouthing Off | Dinner and a show is dead – Peking duck carving, sizzling steaks, noodle pulling and flaming baked Alaskas is the food theatre we want
- Food and performance have always gone hand in hand, but dinner theatre now seems passé, especially considering how seriously we take food in the social media age
- But old food theatre is returning, with flambéed crepes and pasta in a cheese wheel back in vogue. Now let’s revive Peking duck carving and noodle pulling
Storied Hong Kong luxury hotel The Peninsula’s Felix restaurant has revived the glitter-ball glamour of ’70s disco by way of a dinner theatre show called Nights At Studio 54.
For those under 30, Studio 54 was the iconic New York nightclub famed for cocaine, orgies and celebrities, with A-listers from Andy Warhol and Bianca Jagger to Elton John making appearances at one time or another.
By all accounts, the show is fun and fabulous. But I wouldn’t know. Tickets are over HK$2,300 (US$295), and while that’s not an unreasonable amount to spend on a meal for some, for me that’s groceries for the entire month.
There are plenty of restaurants offering experiential dining for roughly the same price, but without the polyester white suits and Bob Mackie sequinned dresses. The theatre arrives on the plates created in the kitchen.
Dinner and entertainment have always gone hand in hand. We know of Madrigal feasts during the Renaissance with choirs and jesters. We assume Egyptian pharaohs, Chinese emperors, and Roman generals all liked to lounge around and be fed while dancers pranced about seductively – at least that’s how the movies portray things.