And Now… Limited Edition Restaurants
Radha Chadha -
Wednesday, January 07, 2009 8:00 PM
If you are a luxury brand marketer, you know the power of those two words: Limited Edition. Say it to a fashionista, and she will whip out her credit card. The simple logic of “Tighten supply, Expand desire” rarely fails to work. I have seen it applied dexterously by almost every major luxury brand – 200 pieces of a special handbag made to coincide with a new store launch, or just 100 watches designed by so-and-so to mark the brand’s 100th anniversary, or a numbered range of just 1000 bottles of a rare 60-year-old whisky – but it was my first visit to a limited edition restaurant.
We dined at Flash this weekend in London…it is a temporary restaurant
set up in the Royal Academy of Arts for just 80 days, and will serve
its last meal on 18 January. Temporary it might be in concept, but
there is nothing make-shift about its offering – it has gone the whole
nine yards and more to put together a memorable experience. And this
limited edition is playing to script – it was packed full, helped by
the rave reviews it has been getting from the likes of New York Times and
London Times.
The setting itself is quite something. It feels like a large interactive art installation where your presence – and that of other diners – makes it come alive. The restaurant’s space is marked out by wooden packing crates, stacked ceiling high – it cues temporary for sure, but also very con-temporary, and needless to say, very look-at-me, very hip-and-happening. We sat under a weird-and-wonderful chandelier, a multi-spiked Swarovski-encrusted jagged star in Christmas-y green. There were specially commissioned artworks adorning the crate-walls. The crockery was made just for Flash by Wedgewood – absolutely funky gorgeous stuff designed by illustrator Will Broome – with cheeky lines like “if you don’t eat your greens, no pudding for you”. It is the only time in my life that I have seriously lusted after a teapot, that, aside from being used for serving tea, also happened to be the prize for winning the full house in a game of Bingo.
Yes, Bingo. A drag queen suddenly appeared mid-dinner and handed out Bingo tickets – Jonny Woo, quite an act, statuesque, slim, white curls, a day-after shadow, multi-colored stockings, 6-inch killer heels and 2-inch eyelashes – and the whole restaurant paused from their collective dinners to play a game of Bingo.
The food was surprisingly good too – Flash is run by the (permanent) restaurant Bistrotheque – with some delicious options for a vegetarian like me.
This is one limited edition act that I wish had lasted longer…at least long enough to give me a second chance to win that odd-ball Will-Broome-designed, specially-for-Flash-which-won’t-exist-after-19-January-2009, made-by-Wedgewood-in-its-250th-anniversary-year teapot.
Photo courtesy New York Times