The world shifts into a new trend: Making the eating experience "Instagrammable" and more cinematic, as new restaurants with more authentic content pop up daily.
The wonder of our present day is the contradictory trends. At the moment, catastrophic fears abound concerning war, inflation, COVID-19, the climate crisis and a general decline. But then there’s this: A return to the Roaring Twenties, a time when people are dining in style again.
You are WHAT you eat. But also WHERE you eat. Escapism is the latest trend – an escape from everyday life to a world like in some Hollywood film. A question about the spirit of the times is this: Will going out be increasingly staged for display on social networks?
"The dining experience" is being taken to some new heights – or lows, depending on your point of view. Top gastronomy publisher Marcella Prior-Callwey has helped to understand what the new event-dining megatrends are all about.
In west Berlin’s elegant Kurfuerstendamm boulevard, restaurant MQ offers California-style dining, while Berlin’s Italian restaurant Coccodrillo has a wild mixture of 1970s, Hollywood, diner and Italian-disco styles, local critics say.
It is the second trattoria in Germany by the gastronomy outfit Big Squadra, the German branch of the Big Mamma Group. Prior to Berlin, the group had created a big stir in places like Paris, London, Madrid, Marseilles and Monaco. Big Mamma’s design studio, Kiki, loves to design guest rooms of splashy-colored retro-kitsch.
"It isn’t our goal to be seen as an Instagram restaurant," Big Squadra Communications Officer Chiara Baumgartner said. “But if it is beautiful and exceptional, then pictures will be taken and people will want to share them. That’s how it is.”
Naturally, photogenic bars and restaurants have been around for a long time – whether due to their breathtaking views, their location up in the mountains or on a waterfront, or because of their impressive space. But during the 2010s it became apparent that even if located in boring spots, cafes and bars increasingly feature hip interior designs. The gastronomical world has mutated into one global village.
And, regardless of whether it is Manhattan Island or Barcelona, the new trendy places share many interior decor features in common: lightbulbs with visibly glowing filaments, vintage furniture, walls of brick or concrete, chalkboards, hanging flower baskets, clipboard menus, or even a bicycle on the wall, for whatever reason.
"Eventgastronomy" is the newest theater attraction.
"The gastronomical world is now much farther along than just wanting to be 'Instagramamble,'" said Marcella Prior-Callwey of the publishing company Callwey-Verlag in Munich. "It’s about the live experience, for only in that way can analog offerings compete against the digital world." Her publishing house each year stages a competition seeking "the most beautiful restaurants and bars" in Germany.
"Restaurants are the new theater. They are conceived as a Gesamtkunstwerk (total work of art)," Prior-Callwey said. Entrepreneurs aim to speak to all the senses with eclectic designs, music tailored to the setting and attractive menus.
Patrons want to have the best possible time there instead of just watching others online, she said. “They say to themselves: If I am spending money and investing the time, then I want it to be something stunning.”
Prior-Callwey said that the trailblazers of the so-called megatrend now spreading across Europe and beyond have been, among others, from London. There, such exclusive brasseries as Amazonico, Sketch and The Maine Mayfair have paved the way.
In such places, there is often some unusual combination on the plate and new ideas about how meals should be presented, whether for one person or more, so-called sharing, said Prior-Callwey. “Many guests want to see and be seen in such big-city restaurants. But above all, it’s about the real moment that they want to experience.”
The noble event dining experience is just one part of peoples’ overloaded present-day lives, in which everyone – from classical cultural institutions to media to streaming services – competes for customers’ wallets and, above all, their time and attention, she explained.
”We are all inundated with offers that are clamoring for attention,” said Prior-Callwey. “And you have to offer something and fill the time as stunningly as possible – and that’s exactly what these restaurants are doing.”
