When I was in my 20s, and I had an apartment to myself, I was that guy. I was the guy who had the reproduction of Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” hanging right next to my bookshelf. It was my announcement to any visitor that, inside, the ponytail-wearing university smartass was still living somewhere inside of me. It said “look at me, I could have put up a poster of the Oilers, but no, I am far too cultured to do that.”
My print of “Starry Night” is long gone, and there is now a lot of sports stuff hung up from the basement walls in my family home.
But, for a couple of hours, that smart-ass kid inside of me got to live again.
My wife and I were invited to the media preview of 7 Paintings: Art of Dining. The interactive seven-course meal will be served at Halo, the restaurant at the Renaissance Edmonton Airport Hotel, on select Fridays and Saturdays from Sept. 27 through December.
The restaurant was shrouded in blackout curtains, blocking it off from any outside light. (Unfortunately, it didn’t fully block out the sound of NFL football from the big-screen TVs in the lounge, a kink that will need to be worked out as the weeks go on.)
We walked in, and I expected to see a sprawling scene, as if cut out from the castle-like restaurant in Peter Greenaway’s foodie-revenge-sex art-film The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover — with staff dressed in Gaultier-designed out-of-time period costumes. Maybe there’d be a castrato singing operatic high notes as we were seated.
(If this review gets even one reader to watch this film, I will consider it a success.)
Instead, we were seated at white tables, with images of famous works of art projected onto them. Monet. Van Gogh. Dali. At the head of each table, there was a projection of a Mona Lisa.
The lights go down, and the projected Mona Lisas begin to speak, taking the diners through what would be a pretty basic art history course. It’s two and a half hours worth of interactive dining, with projected images, music and some diner participation. I won’t spoil it by how the chefs represented seven famous works of art into dishes, but I will warn you that, at some point, you’ll be given an Amazing Race-like task to open a lockbox that contains one of your courses. This is where my wife and I realized we’d be so screwed if we ever were on The Amazing Race. The server basically had to come over and tell us how to do it. You will be given paintbrushes to apply sauces and dresses to your courses, and the Dali-inspired dessert challenges the tastebuds with things that you think shouldn’t go together, but do.
I just wonder how Banksy would feel about all of this. Would he shake his head? Would he have poisoned the food in the dish inspired by his street art? Or would he have just laughed and laughed and laughed? Would Warhol see the irony of his pop soup-can art being used to inspire a dish, that isn’t soup?
And, yes, for those of us who once had “Starry Night” hanging next to our bookshelves, this is the kind of night that’s right up our alley.
Halo Bar | Bistro
4236 36 St E, Edmonton International Airport | halobarbistro.ca/7-paintings-experience
