My wife loves Overcooked; it’s a video game that has a simple premise. The player takes the role of a chef, who has to complete a variety of food orders in rapid fashion. Add to that the need to wash dishes and get the orders to the tables. As the levels get more difficult, the kitchens are placed in settings that are progressively more harrowing. The kitchen is placed on a raft on a raging river. The kitchen is placed on a pit of lava. So, the chef not only has to cook as fast as he can, he has to avoid death.
And, then there’s the theme song; it’s an earworm. As the tests get more challenging, the pace of the music quickens. And you hear it in your sleep.
So, maybe I had a flashback or 10 when I went to the media preview of Le Petit Chef, an interactive dining experience that’s now playing at the JW Marriott downtown. It is scheduled to run until January of 2025.
In Edmonton, interactive dining experiences are all the rage. I was just at the opening of 7 Paintings at the Renaissance Airport Hotel, which took diners through seven courses based on seven artists, with video, music and a Mona Lisa rendering that spoke to the guests.
With Le Petit Chef, the focus is on, well, a small animated chef. Using your plate and white tablecloth as a tableau, vignettes of the chef’s adventures in cooking are shown before every course. The small chef wrestles with a lobster. He goes into the sea looking for clams. He finds himself on an ice floe, looking for dessert. He is too small to grill a steak, but tries it anyway.
Like a Looney Tunes cartoon, the chef does not make it through each adventure unscathed. And, after each vignette, we’re treated to a dish based on what we’d just seen. From bouillabaisse with shellfish and scallops, to a Lobster Thermidor that screams “1975 is back, baby!” to a tenderloin served with potatoes, Le Petit Chef is not trying to reinvent a dining wheel. In fact, the menu is downright traditional — and retro. This is about entertainment and eating, it’s not about microportions and foam and long narratives about the farm where the cow was raised. It’s supposed to be a simple, fun night.
And, damn it, it kinda felt like Overcooked had come to life. Except, this time, it was accordion music — on repeat.
Le Petit Chef, JW Marriott
Downtown | 10344 102 St NW, Edmonton | lepetitchef.com/edmonton
