To my gallows amusement, rumours abounded early this morning of an alleged "cannibal restaurant" soon to open in Berlin and based on the Wari culture of endocannibalism, the respectful consumption of a member of one's own society after they have died.
According to this video interview with the restaurant's supposed owner, it was to have been his second restaurant, the original, Flimé, being located in Brazil near a Wari reservation. The illusion was bolstered by this website where members are presented with a health questionnaire and asked to decide which body part they want to donate.
Despite laying themselves wide open to accusations of crass insensitivity, the people behind it have scored a major publicity coup around what would have been the ultimate theme restaurant. In fact, whether there's any substance to this story or not, the reality is in many ways even worse. Just what is it about this curious subset that appeals to restaurant-goers?
There's a new restaurant called Shaka Zulu just opened in Camden that has had the more schadenfreude-inclined of the capital's restaurant-watchers in something of a lather. Improbably vast and elaborate, it purports to offer the authentic taste of Africa (seared ostrich carpaccio with peppadews, anyone?) in an atmosphere of Zulu extravagance. We restaurant critics are all happily sharpening our knives because, oddly, there's nothing anyone loves more than a truly venomous review. I haven't been yet, because I like a place to find its level before piling in, but the only thing to properly astonish me about the place would be if the food were any good.
Have you ever had a decent dinner in a theme restaurant? I know I haven't. From the purgatory endured by taking children to the Rainforest Café (sub-TGI's food heavily reliant on the deep fryer and dodgy animatronics that actually put the fear of Armageddon into the kids) to the hilariously awful Dans le Noir, the words "theme restaurant" usually have me blanching with horror.
As the Flimé story demonstrates, Britain's most outré offerings are positively vanilla compared what happens overseas, especially in Asia. (Having said that, there is now an outfit in London offering the revolting practice of nyotaimori – literally, "female body plate", or eating sushi off the body of a naked woman. Deepest joy.) I've eaten in Catholic / Goth themed Christon Cafe in Tokyo, me and a million giggling teens, but compared with what else is actually out there: pah!
A bit of research throws up (pun intended) the kind of thing that would profoundly, even permanently, put me off my dinner. Who needs Weight Watchers when all you have to do is call to mind Marton, a "Modern Toilet Diner" in Taipei? Here, customers sit on seats shaped like lavs, scarfing carefully sculpted chocolate ice-cream – I don't have to spell it out, surely? – out of mini toilet bowls.
The Taiwanese do seem particularly keen on the furthest reaches of acceptable taste. The curiously monickered DS Music Restaurant in Taipei is themed round hospitals, with cute, sexy nurses squirting drinks into your gob from IV-type apparatuses. Fortunately, the city's Holocaust restaurant didn't last. Also unsurprisingly out of business is Sehnsucht ("Longing"), the Berlin outfit that catered for, yes, anorexics.
Death is a recurring topic for some entirely bizarre reason, with the likes of the demised Eternity in the Ukraine, which was cosily located inside the world's largest coffin, or the restaurant in Ahmadabad, India which is actually inside a Muslim cemetery. Its name? The New Lucky. Perhaps reminding ourselves of our inevitable end adds a little piquancy to dinner.
See also, randomly, prisons: Chain Cool in Beijing, The Jail in Taiwan (again), and even in the UK, the likes of The Clink where not only are you dining inside an actual prison (High Down), but you're served and catered to by actual inmates. The Clink's aims are entirely admirable, providing rehabilitation opportunities for offenders, but if you're looking for something more tasteless, how about The Hobbit House in Manila? Owned by a Lord of the Rings freak, it's staffed entirely by, um, people of restricted growth. Mind you, the Ukraine also has the Masoch Café, dedicated to that cheery inventor of masochism, so it's up there with Taiwan.
Of course, themed outfits aren't new, but once upon a time they were a little cooler than they are today, like the heavenly Le Macabre in swinging 60s Soho. Nowadays, there's something about theming that just screams impossibly naff. The maddest thing is how many of these extraordinary gaffs not only survive, but thrive (see the aforementioned Dans le Noir and Manchester's Hellfire Club, whose menu items include Creature of the Swamp and Cannibal Holocaust, "served with a selection of garnish vegetables and potatoes or chunky chips").
Am I and my foodie muckers just being the most insufferable snobs and does everyone really love this kind of thing? Can it really be true that the quality of the food is less important than being served by someone dressed as a schoolgirl brandishing a whippy little cane? Please tell me it ain't so.
