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El Celler de Can Roca, the world's second best restaurant, is gearing up to present a ground breaking culinary opera called El Somni.
Somni, which translates to dream, will be a dynamic multi-sensory private dining experience with food and drink, video, robots, music and card games, as reported in the Spanish newspaper El País. The culinary opera is a concept that Jordi, Joan and Josep -aka The Roca Brothers - have been working on for a while.
Details surrounding the project were sparse back in June when we first brought you news of the Roca's culinary opera. At the time, we had an excluive interview with Joan Roca and brought you the news that the brothers were working on building a special igloo-shaped venue in their restaurant's basement to host a culinary opera. It was to become a place where ''you would eat a truffle, hear and see the forest, feel the humidity of the forest and hear the sounds of where the truffle was from...''
Now, we know that Somni will revolve around the symbolism of the number 12. The opera will have 12 stages and will be enjoyed by 12 diners on December 12th. It's inspired by XVII century French chef François Vatel and will use "gastronomic tools of XXI century: lighting and special clothing, synthetic beats, virtual images on the table and the room, dance, costumes and literature," according to El País.
Somni was presented by pastry chef Jordi Roca at the 2nd edition of the annual Film & Cook festival held in Barcelona this past weekend. The opera is a collaboration of the Roca brothers and the award-winning audiovisual artist Franc Aleu.
But the Rocas aren't the only chefs intent on reshaping the modern dining experience. Ferran Adrià paved the way for techno-emotional cuisine at elBulli until it closed last year but continues his research at The elBulli Foundation. Heston Blumenthal is another chef that has sought to conjure emotional responses from diners. In a video interview with FDL, Blumenthal revealed he'd love to be able ''to cook someone's life.''
In the end, the Roca brothers believe that making food a multi-sensory experience is best expressed in an opera: "We have always believed that the opera is where all the arts come together and compliment each other, and we always thought that the maximum effect for an opera would be if it was edible. There will be a lot of attention to detail, projectors over the tables, projectors on the dishes, projectors over the walls, music, and by combining all this we will create an opera sequence."
Via El País
