UV Restaurant

A theatrical extravaganza of sequential dishes and multi-sensory experiences, Paul Pairet's futuristic Ultraviolet Restaurant turns the very idea of conceptual dining on its head. The room, a blank canvas devoid of emotive artwork and distracting views, hides a wealth of high-end projectors, lighting rigs and wind machines vital to the table show, scheduled to begin at exactly 7.30 pm. After the initial six month wait, guests meet at a predefined 'pick-up' point, and are subsequently bundled into black vans for transportation to an undisclosed warehouse location at the heart of Shanghai.

Guests are led in semi-darkness to a single solitary table, flanked by five chairs on either side. Once seated, the immersive culinary theatre is brought to life by the amusingly ironic opening sequence to Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Led by an extravagant “Avant-Garde” menu of 20 courses, the dining area is transformed into a 360-degree theatre of projections, including a billowing tornado of smoke and cigar ash (timed to coincide with your first bite into a foie gras cigarette), and Pop Rock Oysters, teemed with a 60's wallpaper of music icons, brand names and 20th Century inventions. Paired with the tangy aromas of cigar smoke, earth and ocean breezes, Pairet creates a modal experience of “psycho-tasting” that could very well challenge the future of fine dining as we know it.