This Dining Experience Is a Creative Take on Social Distancing
The restaurant at Amsterdam art institute Mediamatic has taken the current COVID-19 restrictions as inspiration for a new dining concept called Serres Séparées, allowing guests to enjoy a full-course dinner in greenhouses along the waterfront.
With the ongoing risk of new COVID-19 outbreaks, the hospitality industry has been preparing for the following months by implementing strict measures that will enable them to keep their businesses running whilst serving customers as safely as possible. At Mediamatic ETEN, a vegan restaurant popular for their experimental and performative food concepts, the pandemic has been used as a source of inspiration to develop a novel dining experience in separated greenhouses, which were previously used in art projects.
Guests can book a table for two or four people as an early or late dinner and enjoy a fully vegan five-course meal with drinks in their own transparent cabin. All courses are served by waitresses and waiters wearing face shields and placed on a long wooden plank to maintain distance between guests and employees. Similar to Mediamatic ETEN’s earlier experimental dinner concepts, this one encourages guests to use their thoroughly-washed hands instead of cutlery in order to not only taste and smell, but also sense their food.
After multiple test runs, the restaurant Mediamatic ETEN is now in full swing again, offering the Serres Séparées dinner experience every night of the week with high success. Although this unique concept is surely not a blueprint for all restaurants, it serves as an inspiration for everyone working in the hospitality industry to think creatively beyond current restrictions in order to prepare for a future in which social distancing will likely remain with public dining.
