Food for thought: The future of dining
The Innovation team at Instinctif harness the best of the future to deliver market-leading ideas in the present. The team’s specialism spans digital strategy and marketing, data & analytics, and strategic brand. This fortnightly update shares top tips to help you foster creative and challenge the status quo and summarises the news that matters.
Remember going to a restaurant and finding yourself knocking elbows with your neighbouring patrons? Well, relegate that feeling to the past, because over-crowded eateries are unlikely to return for the foreseeable future.
Instead we’re seeing a hint of how the future might look by turning to mainland Europe – ETEN at the Mediamatic Art Centre in Amsterdam, to be specific. Located on the city’s waterfront, the restaurant is test-driving new ‘quarantine greenhouses’.
ETEN’s Serres Séparées (separate greenhouses) are designed to create an “intimate dinner experience,” one which is public health-friendly, with candlelit tables seating up to three, enclosed within glass panels. Waiters will be equipped with gloves and face shields to lower the risk of infection spread.
The biodomes – if not the masked waiters – are not entirely new. Closer to home, they’re reminiscent of London’s festive igloo pods of years past and seem to hold up a light to a potential path for the hospitality industry.
Instead of trying to recreate a diluted version of the dining-out experience of days gone by, the restaurant is innovating, making isolation a point of interest.
Whether this is the future of dining remains to be seen, but with all upcoming reservations fully booked, the novel approach has certainly sated the appetite of wannabe diners today.
Tool of the week
In the absence of in-person artistic opportunities, many of us have gone online to flex our creative muscles. Some art institutions have even been putting their curricula online; the New York Academy of Art being one of them.
Whether you’re an established Expressionist, or a lacklustre life draw-er, now’s a good time to try some free art classes. Through Zoom, The University of California, Berkeley, is offering sessions, including a DIY sculpture class where rubbish is up-cycled into art.
Top tip
This week’s tip comes from Associate Partner, Charlie Bagley.
As it is looking like we won’t be back in the office for a while yet, we are constantly trying to think of ways we can adapt and become more efficient.
Something that has helped me keep myself organised and on top of things is an app called Shift. This allows you to put all of your apps, accounts, emails, and tools into one place, so you can avoid that problem of having multiple tabs open at the same time. You can even use a search bar to look for something across all of your email, calendar and drive accounts.
You can download it here.