Does eating the food on screen enhance your experience? Writer Carter Smith went to Taste Cinema to find out
Out of all the emotions you experience when watching a movie, an underanalysed effect it has on you is hunger. We all laugh together, cry together, but we never talk about the collective belly rumble when seeing mouth-watering food on screen.
Which is strange, because directors and animators have created standards for foods I don’t think many chefs could replicate. Even as a picky eater, I watch some of these films and have an insatiable craving for a cuisine which I know I’d never like.
They may be our great storytellers, but also great chefs.
Someone who did decide to delve deeper into this was Amy Fernando.
After watching the cooking scene in The Godfather, she had a question. Could food bring us closer to the characters and the stories we love on screen? She decided to put it to the test.
It’s called Taste Cinema, a dining and viewing experience where fans are treated to a five-course meal based on the film they are watching. They go to different restaurants across the country offering different films and different dishes for you to enjoy.
It was started in 2017, so it’s fair to say the test was a resounding success. I wouldn’t be on a train to London on the hottest day of the year after spending £85 on a ticket otherwise.
It’s a large sum, but not ridiculous when you take into consideration the price of cinema tickets and five-course meals on their own. You could do a lot worse.
Despite being a notorious picky eater, I was still enamoured by the idea. I knew it would be tricky for me to find somefood I liked, but if you put a meal which was designed to please an eight-year-old boy who only wants chips for dinner, I would be happy.
So naturally, we picked Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. It’s a weird experience watching a kids’ film in an establishment as fancy as the Moniker, but a welcome one.
It came with five courses — a mocktail or cocktail, skinny courgette bait fries, a cheeseburger, tomato spaghetti and meatballs with garlic bread, and melted chocolate topped with toasted piped meringue with biscuits and strawberries.
It’s a substantial amount. Luckily for them, I was starving.
As much as you go for the dining experience, this is very much a feast for the senses. They nail the aesthetic straight away. As you walk into the restaurant, which is split into two different rooms, parts of the score play as you get accustomed to your surprisingly comfy seat for the next couple of hours.
Our menu was presented like a weather report and accompanied by a quiz, which I unashamedly got 10/10 on. I knew spending my childhood years watching animated films would pay off eventually. I did eventually lose on the tiebreaker. It happens to the best of us.
What particularly impressed me was the presentation of the drinks. Each component of the drinks was in test tubes, and there was a science test sheet instructing you on how to pour your drink correctly.
It’s the little things which amplify the experience. Even something as small as the sauce for the fries coming in a sardine tin goes a long way in immersing you in the film.
Something which I thought would decrease my immersion would be the waiters who bring the food over. I was wrong. They are as inconspicuous as possible. There isn’t much of a wait between the meals, so you’d think they would get in the way, but they are as invisible as they could possibly be.
As for the food they were serving, it was a mixed bag. Which is to be expected, considering I don’t like half of the menu. The fries, burger and meringue were manageable, but not good enough for me to change my childish taste buds.
It’s at this point you might wonder why I decided to do this, considering I haven’t liked a single thing on the menu. It’s a fair query, but the reasoning was for the main course.
It may have been devastation for the people in Swallow Falls as their town was hit with a spaghetti tornado, but it was a delight for me. I think I’ll be sad for a long time because the spaghetti I have after this point won’t be comparable.
So was Amy correct? I think she was. Considering the majority of the menu wasn’t to my liking, I felt myself enjoying it more thanks to seeing the food on screen. In the least psychotic way possible, the spaghetti did taste that little bit better seeing it whip up the townsfolk on screen.
In the words of Anton Ego in Ratatouille, I’ll be returning to Taste Cinema, hungry for more.
