Latest news with #culinaryExperience
Forbes
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Forbes
How The Radiant Table Is Fusing Visual Storytelling With High-End Cuisine
The Radiant Table San Francisco's newest dining series, The Radiant Table, is introducing a more elevated take on immersive dining—one that centers chefs and cuisine rather than spectacle. The multi-course dinner series debuted last month and integrates projection mapping technology and top culinary talent into a cohesive, rotating format. Each evening features a new chef, menu, and an accompanying visual narrative, creating an experience focused on storytelling through food. The main goal? To support the chefs and giving them a unique, one-of-a-kind stage where their food stays front and center. While the visuals, music, and design are certainly show-stopping, it's designed to enhance the dining experience, not compete with it. Each dinner experience is created with the chef, inspired by the stories and ideas behind their menu. Each night's chef personally introduces each course, offering context and connection. The projections serve to complement that narrative. At its core, it's about shared storytelling—led by the food, with everything else there to bring it to life. Created by SE Productions—the team behind large-scale culinary experiences like Field to Table and Sumo + Sushi—The Radiant Table builds on a foundation of innovation. The Radiant Table 'At SE Productions, we've always been focused on creating experiences that are entirely new, whether that's building a pop-up restaurant on the 50-yard line of a stadium for Field To Table or flying sumo wrestlers in from Japan for the ultimate 'edu-tainment' experience at Sumo + Sushi,' says SE Productions President, Sam Minkoff. 'Innovation is one of our core values.' This latest concept aims to reframe the idea of immersive dining by emphasizing culinary talent. 'Cassie, my wife and creative partner, and I had experienced other projection-mapped dinners like Le Petit Chef in our travels. While we admired the theatricality of those concepts, we felt there was an opportunity to flip the script, putting the chef at the center rather than the animation,' Minkoff explains. 'Our background in technical production gave us the tools to create immersive visuals that don't just entertain but actually elevate the culinary experience.' Guests are seated at communal eight-person tables, where dishes are served alongside coordinated animations that reflect the meal's theme. One night might feature coastal ingredients paired with ocean-inspired visuals, while another draws on forest flavors and earthy tones. 'Radiant Table was born out of a desire to give chefs a creative playground and to offer guests a sensory-rich environment where art, storytelling, and food work in tandem,' says Minkoff. The Radiant Table The Radiant Table launched on May 16, 2025, and has since featured a diverse and exceptionally talented lineup of Bay Area chefs. Participants have included chef Alex Hong of the one Michelin-starred Sorrel, known for his refined take on seasonal California cuisine, and James Beard semi-finalist chef Azalina Eusope, a fifth-generation street food vendor turned fine dining chef recognized for bringing Malaysian flavors into the spotlight in San Francisco with Azalina's. From Top Chef Season 18 alum and Sobre Mesa chef Nelson German, whose Dominican-meets-Afro-Caribbean flavors are bold and inventive, to chef Heena Patel of Besharam, one of the few chefs in the U.S. highlighting the vibrant vegetarian traditions of Gujarati cuisine, the range of talent and cultural depth is unmatched. Each chef brings a distinct perspective, enriching the series with personal storytelling and regionally inspired dishes that push the boundaries of what immersive dining can be. While immersive hospitality concepts have become more common, The Radiant Table's focus on chef-driven menus and evolving programming sets it apart. With new chef lineups and themes introduced regularly, the series offers a more curated, thoughtful alternative to traditional pop-ups—and a new model for experiential dining in the Bay Area. After the final weekend of the The Radiant Table sold out, they've decided to host one last encore dinner. The series last event will take place June 27th with 3rd Cousin chef, Greg Lutes. For more information, click here. We chatted with SE Productions President Sam Minkoff on what goes in to producing The Radiant Table, how they choose their featured chefs and more. Here's what he had to say: We believe a city's culinary landscape is central to its cultural identity. Radiant Table is our way of building a stage where we can spotlight the chefs shaping that identity, those already recognized with accolades like Michelin stars or James Beard nods, and those who we believe are destined for that kind of recognition. The Radiant Table Our Food & Beverage Manager, Alycia, does an incredible job researching and building relationships with chefs in each city. We look for talent that's not just accomplished, but also curious, chefs who are eager to collaborate and explore a new medium of creative expression. The response from the chefs who've participated so far has been incredibly positive. While we're rooted in local talent, we do plan to bring in occasional visiting chefs to add another layer to the experience. Radiant Table is more supper club than white-tablecloth dining. We're intentionally nudging people out of their comfort zones, whether that's through the visual environment, unfamiliar dishes, or simply the act of sitting with strangers. We've found that guests who seek out unique culinary experiences tend to share common passions: food, community, creativity, and local culture. Placing them at shared eight-top tables fosters real connection. One of our favorite moments during our debut in San Francisco was seeing guests exchange numbers and hug each other at the end of the night. That kind of community-building is exactly what we hope for. There's also a creative reason for the format: from a production standpoint, a 9-by-4-foot table gives our projection artists a larger canvas to work with. It allows the visuals to breathe and truly complement each dish, and helps us maximize the capabilities of our tech. This project was born, in part, from the efforts of grassroots community leaders in San Francisco working to revitalize its downtown core. One Market Plaza, just a block from the Ferry Building, offered an amazing opportunity to bring life back into a former co-working space in a way that's creative and unexpected. Transforming unconventional spaces is something we've leaned into across many of our projects. With Sumo + Sushi, we've taken airplane hangars, film studios, and armories and turned them into cultural theaters. The Radiant Table With Field to Table, we've built stunning 10,000 square foot dining rooms on the 50 yard lines of professional sports fields. Reinventing nontraditional venues has become a bit of a specialty, and it's something we take a lot of pride in. Next up is Bellevue, Washington—a neighboring city to our hometown of Seattle and a place that's quickly emerging as a culinary destination in the Pacific Northwest. We're excited to host Radiant Table in a former Ruth's Chris Steakhouse that had been a fixture in Bellevue for nearly 20 years. It's a perfect example of reimagining what a space can be. After Bellevue, we plan to bring this to other cities with fantastic culinary landscapes, including New York and Chicago. Our ethos is simple: food comes first. Everything else is designed to support that. From the start, we made it a priority to be of service to the chefs, to create a platform where their food could shine and not get lost in the theatrics. The visuals, music, and design are all there to deepen the guest's experience of the dish, not distract from it. Each visual environment is built in collaboration with the chef, drawing on the themes, stories, and personal inspiration behind their menu. The chefs introduce each course themselves, giving guests a deeper understanding of what's on the plate. The projection mapping acts as a companion to that storytelling. Ultimately, we're creating a shared space for storytelling, where food leads the conversation and everything else is there to help it resonate.
Japan Times
07-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Japan Times
With Igniv Bangkok, the Thai capital's fine dining scene gets a boost
I'm lounging on a curved green couch in Igniv Bangkok when the first crystalline platters appear, bearing the 'snacks' to open our meal. My first morsel, I'm instructed, should be the bite-size kadaifi (filo pastry) roll offering a satisfying crispiness that gives way to a delicate morsel of Phuket lobster enhanced with citrus. Next, like an Easter gift, an eggshell filled with a creamy mix of Bergkase (Swiss mountain cheese) and Gruyere with enoki mushroom. A series of starters pairs Thai-grown asparagus with daikon and tarragon, and langoustine tofu with a light sweet corn broth. Main courses see rose-pink chunks of lamb from Italy arrive alongside a lemon-accented pea croquette in a vibrant pea sauce and a dish of soft eggplant bathing in a rich mole with Trang pepper from southern Thailand. A Dutch rhubarb matching the richness of truffes schnitte, a kind of chocolate tart made with Thai chocolate, is one of the sweet treats rounding off my dinner. This eclectic culinary experience is offered by Igniv Bangkok's new spring menu. The restaurant, which now boasts its fourth year of holding a Michelin star, is the first Asian outpost of the acclaimed original, which opened in 2015 in Switzerland's Grand Resort Bad Ragaz. The man behind the brand is Swiss celebrity chef Andreas Caminada, who is known for his pioneering approach to creative contemporary Swiss cuisine and promoting the idea of a 'fine dining sharing experience' in a casual environment where guests are welcome to swap stilettos for sneakers to tuck into top-tier cuisine. For Igniv Bangkok's interior, Spanish designer Patricia Urquiola used a combination of wood and handcrafted fabrics to communicate a homey warmth, a mood that matches the casual fine dining concept of the restaurant. | IGNIV BANGKOK Igniv, which means 'nest' in Caminada's native Romansh language, focuses not only on the communal nature of dining — all dishes arrive as sharing platters and guests choose from bowls and trays of sweet treats at the 'candy store' to take home in a box — but also the underlying approach of collecting different ingredients from the restaurant's surroundings. The Bangkok establishment embraces this concept but with a twist by virtue of its Asian location. Head chef Arne Riehn joined the restaurant when it opened in 2020 and was appointed the restaurant's lead culinary creative in September 2024. 'You can imagine what kind of dream job it is when someone gives you the trust to run a restaurant in his name and you can basically cook what you would like to eat if you were to (dine here),' says Riehn. Welcoming diversity Riehn has taken on the challenge of encompassing the seasonality of Swiss cuisine while finding a way to put local Thai ingredients in the spotlight. Yet this concept has met with some difficulties, namely the sourcing of reliably high-quality, organic domestic ingredients. 'In Thailand, fine dining is quite young, so these farmers are still developing their systems,' Riehn says, adding that Green Garden, a Chiang Mai-based farm, is now one of his regular suppliers as the quality of its veggies has proven to be consistent. Igniv Bangkok's head chef Arne Riehn has the challenge of executing Swiss cuisine with a Thai twist. | IGNIV BANGKOK Green Garden supplies Igniv with a wide range of herbs and greens, including rarer produce like pea shoots and beetroot. Asparagus, a quintessential European ingredient, comes from a supplier in Nong Bua Lamphu Province in northeastern Thailand, which grows the vegetable year round in greenhouses. Although Riehn praises Thai wagyu and trout, much of the protein comes from overseas, with fish like hamachi (young Japanese amberjack) and kanpachi (yellowtail) imported from Japan. Igniv adds to a growing number of restaurants in Bangkok fueling demand for quality Japanese produce. Den Kushi Flori, a collaboration between Tokyo's modern, creative kaiseki (Japanese haute cuisine) Den and French fine-dining Florilege, opened its first overseas outpost in Bangkok in July 2023, while American restaurant empire Nobu expanded into the market in September 2024. Meanwhile, on the more casual end of the scale, famed Indian chef Gaggan Anand , who also runs his eponymous restaurant in the Thai capital, has teamed up with Thai-Indian chef and restaurateur Chalee Kader to launch E-San in April 2025. Dubbed 'a fantasy of Thai north-eastern cuisine meets Japanese izakaya (Japanese pub),' E-San serves up wildly creative Isaan-Japanese fusion dishes, such as chicken wing stuffed with shiokara (fermented squid entrails), ginger and cabbage and coated in takoyaki (fried octopus dumplings) sauce and nori; and ochazuke (rice steeped in tea) made with rice steamed with yanang leaf (a plant native to Southeast Asia), grilled sheathfish in a nutty genmaicha (brown rice green tea) broth and charred leek oil. All this comes as Bangkok grows its reputation as a gourmet haven. It even rivalled Tokyo in the March edition of the Asia's 50 Best Restaurants awards, with both cities tying for first place with nine locations each. Sorn became the first Thai restaurant to receive two Michelin stars in 2025, a year that Gwendal Poullennec, international director of the Michelin Guides, described as 'a significant and historic year for Thailand on the international gastronomic map.' There's also a wealth of international dining options, from Michelin-starred French establishments, such as Blue by Alain Ducasse and chef Arnaud Dunand's Maison Dunand, to the highly-acclaimed modern German restaurant Suhring. The "pizokel," a Swiss dumpling-like buckwheat pasta, is topped with caviar for a rich, briny finish. | PHOEBE AMOROSO Igniv nestles well in this diverse international milieu. Riehn has flown into his role as culinary magpie, collecting inspiration and ingredients to bring to life Swiss seasonality with a Thai twist and the occasional nod to Japan. One of his favorite dishes is a refreshing starter of raw Hokkaido scallop with beautiful curved slices of carrots, finished with a splash of coconut milk. This is followed by a heartier dish that appeals to both comfort and luxury: Pizokel, a Swiss dumpling-like buckwheat pasta, is drenched in brown butter and topped decadently with bonito foam and caviar. Yet it's the dessert course where Thai influences truly take center stage and Riehn's background as a professionally trained confectioner shines through . An elegantly domed cascara (dried coffee cherry skin) souffle offers a gentle fruitiness with a well-balanced salty-sweet interplay, while a coconut flower juice is transformed into a sorbet. These courses are accompanied by an exceptional pairing of three Swiss wines. Opening the meal is a buttery and full-bodied chardonnay from Gantenbein Winery, while a strawberry-scented pinot noir from Weingut Fromm is the perfect accompaniment to a course of langoustine prepared three ways. This is followed by a bolder, earthier pinot noir from Flascher Spondis that is more than a match for the punchy mains that include wild garlic, Trang pepper and mole. With its creative culinary approach, Igniv is demonstrative of the bold culinary minds that are transforming Bangkok into a vibrant, diverse dining scene.
Forbes
06-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
This Maverick British Chef Is Rewriting The Rules Of Fine Dining
Chef Gareth Ward (left) and a colleague at Ynyshir Gareth Ward believes fine dining should be fun. 'You're on a night out, for f*ck's sake,' says the iconoclastic British chef. 'Stop taking yourself so seriously. Let your hair down, kick your shoes off, enjoy the music. Eat some food, drink some wine, and just take 12 hours of your life out…. 'Loosen your shoulders, do some breathing. Don't be so angry. You know what I mean? It's just like, What's the point? Don't come. It's all about going out. It's all about having fun.' That's why a DJ booth has pride of place in the dining room at Ward's remote restaurant-with-rooms, Ynyshir, at the edge of Wales' Snowdonia National Park. It sits between the open kitchen and the handful of tables where diners sit side by side, schoolroom-style, to ensure that everyone has a view of the show on both stages. Bookshelves lined with vintage vinyl hang kitty-corner to racks of cooking implements in the kitchen. To be sure, the soundtrack helps Ward through service—'I can't really work without music,' he says—and it works as a drumbeat for the highly efficient servers as they present and clear the impressive 30 plates that make up a dinner at Ynyshir, an experience that takes about five hours. But it's also part of the gastronomic immersion that Ward has dreamed up. Diners at Ynyshir have pre-dinner drinks in the lounge That's why Iggy Pop's 'The Passenger' and Bronski Beat's 'Small Town Boy' are listed as 'bonus tracks' on the fashionably cryptic printed menus that guests receive at the end of the evening. They're played as the final desserts are served. The lights go down and the disco ball gets fired up, cartwheeling mirrored light around the room. 'If you get the right crowd, it's absolutely buzzing,' says the chef, throwing in an expletive or two. 'You get people dancing, you get people partying, letting their hair down.' It's an unusual way to describe a restaurant that holds two Michelin stars (the only one in Wales with such a distinction), but then, Ynyshir is a highly unusual restaurant. Since 2013, Ward has been relentlessly committed to innovation, bold flavors, meticulous craftsmanship and the very best versions of whatever ingredient he decides to serve. (And note that you will eat whatever ingredient he decides to serve: Ynyshir is an all-in experience, with no substitutions allowed.) Or as he describes it, it's things he wants to eat. And he doesn't mess around with anything less than the best. 'We don't take ourselves seriously at all,' he clarifies. 'But we take what we do very seriously.' That means quality-obsessed international sourcing, carefully controlled aging in a state-of-the-art salt chamber, and an unfailing determination to be unique. A slice of hamachi sashimi with wasabi Ynyshir was named the Best Restaurant in the UK in 2022 and 2023, and now it's attracting diners from further afield. Ward says he recently welcomed a Canadian couple. 'They'd flown from Canada to London. They'd hired a car, driven to this restaurant, had dinner, stayed over, driven back to London, got on the plane and gone back to Canada. I was blown away. I was almost in tears when they told me,' he recalls. 'I was like, You kidding me? That's f*cking stupid, you know what I mean? And they were like, No, we wanted to come to this restaurant for so long. All of our friends want to come. We wanted to be the first to do it.' Ward recognizes this both as an honor and as a responsibility—and as even more of an imperative to be unlike anything else in the world. 'I don't watch what anybody else is doing,' says Ward. 'I'm not interested. Not that anybody's not—there are some unbelievable restaurants and chefs out there—but I don't really want to be influenced by them. I want everything that comes out of this building to come from within this building. 'I think you can go to a lot of restaurants at the moment and have the same meal. There's nothing wrong with that if that's what they want to do. But I don't want to do that. I love going to a restaurant and being blown away by something different,' he continues. An unrolled handroll of bluefin tuna with preserved black truffle 'The amount of restaurants that are doing the Parker House rolls and the little tarts—you have four of these little tarts before the meal, and it's the same. It's just the same thing. I went to London a few months ago and I went to two restaurants on two nights, and I had exactly the same dish at both restaurants. I went, I spent a lot of money coming here; I don't want to eat that twice. I want a different experience, and that's what I try not to do here.' Unsurprisingly, he has little patience for trends like foraging and sustainability orthodoxy. His fish and A5 wagyu beef are flown in from Tokyo, his truffles come from Western Australia, and shelves behind the counter at the entrance—where he slices some of the hamachi, madai and Balfegó bluefin tuna that will begin the menu—display a global collection of condiments. There's Picual olive oil from Spain, Red Boat fish sauce from Vietnam and S&B curry powder in a red tin from Japan. 'If it's local, I want to use it, obviously. But if it's not, I'll go elsewhere,' he says, noting that his milk and shellfish come from quite close by. 'People go on about sustainability and stuff and local. Well, it's a great story, isn't it? Drawing a ring around your restaurant and saying, I'm not using anything outside of that? It's an unbelievable story. But if it's sh*t, what's the point? You're just lying to yourself and everybody else, and you're robbing people.' He continues, 'So if the lamb isn't amazing around here, I'll get the lamb elsewhere'—mostly Scotland and another region of Wales. 'Some of the local stuff around here, it's just not good enough. Just because there's sheep in my fields doesn't mean I'm going to use them.' A bedroom at Ynyshir His respect for ingredients extends to storing, preserving and cooking them. Often, that means a willingness to do the minimum and let the products shine on their own. The first quarter of the menu is raw or nearly so (and heavily inspired by Ward's many trips to Japan): sashimi slivers of that madai, hamachi and bluefin are enlivened with white soy, tama miso or simple fresh wasabi. From there, the menu moves around Southeast Asia, starting with fish and seafood—local shrimp with green curry, local lobster with nham jim—and then moving on to birds and meat. In keeping with his vision, Ward doesn't shy away from strong flavors. The Singapore-style chili crab is properly spicy, and the bird larb is even more so. He comes back to Wales for the desserts, going heavy on the local dairy products, as in the cream in the custard that's served with a Pricia apricot, in the tiramusi that's laced with Ethiopian coffee and in the milk that's paired with mango and passionfruit. And one of the ingredients he's most proud of is his hyperlocal birch syrup, which is collected from trees on the estate. He serves it over banana ice cream and N25 Kaluga caviar. Snowdonia is also heavily present in the dining room. Local sheepskins cover the chairs, the ceramics are made down the road, and much of the furniture was made onsite. Ward notes proudly that Ynyshir is perhaps the only restaurant in the world to employ a full-time blacksmith—instrumental not only in restoring the old manor house that became the restaurant but in maintaining its many handmade details. The rooms upstairs, in the nearby garden house or in the smattering of tepees on the grounds are filled with the same attention to detail and spirit of serious unseriousness. Ward's fun nights out don't end with the last petits fours, and neither do Ynyshir's lasting impressions.
Khaleej Times
30-05-2025
- Lifestyle
- Khaleej Times
Restaurant Review: Baoli at J1 Beach is a chic, Cannes-style escape
One of the glittering jewels in J1's elegant and aspirational crown is the ever-chic Bâoli. The half-indoor, half-outdoor restaurant was filled to the brim with beautiful and glamorous diners, sipping blush, and enjoying sparkling conversation, creating an infectious buzz throughout the space. The views of the Arabian Gulf beyond the pristine infinity pool perfectly framed the restaurant's open-plan concept, immediately putting us at ease and creating an air of vacation. We were seated and instantly welcomed by our warm, French waiters, flown in from the Cannes establishment to mark the new opening. The seamless service added to the 'holiday' feel of the place, with the French waiters catering to our every whim before we even anticipated it ourselves. We had a refreshing aperitif and then, the meal began with a series of raw crudos, including salmon ceviche, tuna belly in ponzu, and hamachi topped with shaved truffle and crispy ginger. The hamachi was to die for. Following the raw selection, we enjoyed crispy kimchi gyoza and togarashi-topped squid — both utterly delectable. The standout, however, had to be the chicken karaage, coated in a sweet and spicy glaze, each bite delivering the perfect balance of crunch, tang, and juicy freshness. For mains, we opted for sharing plates, both of which sounded absolutely epic. The glazed half rack of lamb had hints of curry and a delightful char in all the right places. The hero dish of the lunch, without a shadow of a doubt, was the creamy, umami-packed lobster udon. Served tableside in a beautiful claypot, the udon was coated in an indulgent sauce, cut by fresh chunks of lobster tail, delicately shaved spring onions, and hints of sesame throughout. As one of the more extravagant lunches of my life, the indulgence didn't stop there. The meal concluded with a sesame chocolate fondant, cooked to perfection and topped with a delightfully sweet and savory sesame brittle. Alongside, it was the banana millefeuille — a perfectly rich and satisfying bite.
Arab News
26-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Arab News
Where We Are Going Today: ‘Cafe Boulud' – French restaurant in Riyadh
Riyadh's Cafe Boulud, a French restaurant founded by chef Daniel Boulud, offers a culinary performance as refined as its marble interiors and softly lit atmosphere. From the moment you're seated, you're in for a journey, not just a meal. The tasting menu is an elegant parade of flavors, beautifully plated and rich with French technique. Each course is executed with precision, but it's the taste that truly stuns. The raviolo, for example, with its herbaceous ricotta filling and a delicate touch of pine nut and parmesan, felt both comforting and complex. The wagyu striploin, served with panisse, salsify, and a black pepper jus, was a standout, tender and deeply flavorful. Even the lighter dishes, like the hamachi with horseradish and pistachio, were layered and bright. Of course, this level of dining comes with a high price tag. But when you consider the attention to detail, the ambiance, and the impeccable service, it feels justified. You're not just paying for food, you're paying for artistry. This is the kind of place you visit for a special occasion, or when you want to be reminded that food can be more than a meal, it can be an experience. For more information, check their Instagram @cafebouludriy.
