7 Paintings Immersive Dining

From Projection Rooms to Forest Tables: The New Era of Immersive Dining

8 Minute read

09 Mar 2026

Flora Tsapovsky

Journalist

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As immersive dining expands from projection-heavy spectacles to nature-driven environments and story-led meals, chefs and restaurants are rethinking how food and experience intersect.

Some time ago, perhaps around the rise of the Museum of Ice Cream, everything suddenly became “immersive” in a very specific way. Exhibitions began tapping into all of our senses at once with digital aids, wellness studios turned into projection rooms, and virtual reality arrived at concerts. One could argue that hospitality has always satisfied this craving for immersion, from windowless dining clubs that ask guests to leave everyday life at the door to dinner theater that blurs reality and fiction.

Still, few could have predicted the following scene: you in a dark hotel conference room, painting over an edible version of Vincent van Gogh’s The Starry Night while video projections illuminate the space and an audio track narrates a child-friendly version of the painter’s life and vision.

It’s 2026, and immersive dining is bigger and more diverse than ever, with hotels, restaurants, and pop-ups offering multiple iterations of the concept. Some are tech-forward and rely heavily on video and sound effects. Others turn to nature, real-life art, or distinctive design, while some include hands-on opportunities and in-person touchpoints for guests.

Immersion Through Technology and Spectacle

The aforementioned Starry Night dinner experience, for example, falls firmly into the first category. It is part of Seven Paintings, a popular traveling dinner series that marries video art and food through the lens of recognizable artists such as Van Gogh, Banksy, Pablo Picasso, and Andy Warhol. Each dish is prefaced by an animated introduction exploring a different aspect of the artist’s work, and the plates themselves echo those styles in shape and form, sometimes with interactive elements such as unlocking a box with an invisible code or cracking open a baked shell.

The project had recently landed in the U.S. I attended its run in Silicon Valley, with offerings planned in multiple cities through 2026. It is hardly alone. There is a brand-new Alice in Wonderland–themed offering in Miami featuring projection mapping, an edible forest appetizer, and plenty of Instagram-friendly moments. There is also Le Petit Chef, a family-friendly dinner experience featuring video clips of a tiny chef procuring ingredients and preparing dishes that are then served to diners in real life, and The Radiant Table, a series of chef-driven meals with abundant visual elements.

“It’s fun and charming,” says Francesco Zimone, CEO of Welcome Home Hospitality, the food and beverage operator of Hotel Figueroa in Los Angeles, where Le Petit Chef is currently running. While the experience is intentionally kid-friendly, adults have plenty of fun too, Zimone says, as the dinner “creates an element of conversation and makes the table giggle during every course.”

When the dishes, prepared by the hotel staff, arrive, the projector stops. “That gives the guests the opportunity to speak about what they have just seen, comment on the food, and simply enjoy their evening,” Zimone says.

As much as I enjoyed the cleverness and creativity of Seven Paintings, it left me craving a more meaningful connection between the idea and the food, as well as tighter execution. It is perhaps good news that chefs across the country are approaching immersive dining from a different direction, creating conversational layers around their food with heritage, culture, and the environment in mind.

When Chefs Build the Story Around the Food

At Stanly Ranch in Napa, that took the form of The Rose Room, a limited-time Valentine’s Day offering that transformed a private dining space into a lush living floral installation by local designer Edgar Martinez Ruacho. Walking into the bloom-filled room Ruacho created set the tone for a romantic, ceremonial menu that included a savory caviar-filled cookie, a pasta course adorned with edible flowers, and floral mandarin sorbet. In the future, the hotel plans to host additional limited-edition dinners in the space.

For Stanly Ranch executive chef Anthony Stagnaro, creating the experience was about balance and nuance rather than a literal translation of the theme. “The immersive elements remove the feeling of ‘going out to dinner’ and replace it with the feeling of being inside a story,” says Stagnaro. When approaching the menu, each course was built to echo natural elements in subtle ways, he says: “Colors that feel organic and restrained, and ingredients that reflect the seasons at Stanly Ranch,” with the goal of expressing fragility and abundance rather than simply covering the plates in edible flowers.

The concept, utilizing or creating a unique environment that enhances the food, is becoming more prominent, from hidden bars to hotel restaurants. San Francisco’s immersive dining destination Merchant Roots, where chef Bryan Shelton designs monthly themed tasting menus complete with special dishes and video art, recently added Bar Oso, where guests can sample campfire-smoked cocktails seated at a bar shaped like a wood slab and surrounded by lush greenery. The overall atmosphere evokes a fantasy forest, and both the design and the menu lean fully into the theme.

Elsewhere, the tie-ins are more thematic and whimsical, slightly broadening the context of dining. Consider hotel restaurants that transform meals into immersive extensions of the artistic worlds around them. At Bowtie Bar inside the Renaissance New York Times Square Hotel, cocktails are synchronized with Midnight Moment from Times Square Arts, matching each drink to the billboard display. In Dallas, JW Steakhouse mirrors the neighborhood’s cultural programming with offerings such as a Home Alone–themed menu tied to Dallas Symphony Orchestra performances or a signature cocktail inspired by the Dallas Museum of Art’s Arts & Letters author series.

Then there are experiences that look inward, interpreting immersion as a way to recreate memories and evoke nostalgia. In San Diego, chef Cesarina Mezzoni recently launched Cucina di Nonna, a theatrical, story-driven dinner staged inside purpose-built private rooms designed to feel like a Roman grandmother’s home. The experience takes place in the private dining rooms of Mezzoni’s restaurant Elvira. Guests might help make moka coffee, whisk the zabaione, browse through Nonna’s records for the turntable, or “take part in small gestures that feel familiar and intimate,” Mezzoni says. “Nothing is forced, but the door is open to participate.”

With such a variety of formats, immersive dining has proven versatile and adaptable. It can lure screen-addicted diners into fine dining while offering sensory-overloaded adults a respite nestled in nature, whether simulated, real, or both. Restaurateurs are also using it to add whimsy to evolving menus and create experiences that feel timely and distinctive.

The audience, industry insiders say, is more than on board. “Dining out has become expensive, and guests are looking for experiences that feel meaningful rather than transactional,” says Niccolò Angius, co-owner of Elvira. “True immersive dining invites people to slow down, feel something, and leave with a memory, not just a meal.”