Culinary experience transcends reality

Above: Illusionist Scott Silven sits at a table in the John Purdue Room as Magdolene DeVoe (HTM ’16) fills his water glass.

The ingredients of the evening melded and married — some subtle and others striking, but each playing an important role in the creation of something extraordinary. The service, food and performance worked in concert to stimulate guests’ senses and transport them through memories and in-the-moment magic.

Chef Ambarish Lulay sears duck breasts as students watch.

Scott Silven’s “At the Illusionist’s Table,” an immersive dining experience and illusionist show, in February added the John Purdue Room in Marriott Hall to its list of venues made up of Michelin-star restaurants and renowned theaters.

For each of six evenings — seven shows in all — a new group of Purdue students worked in the kitchen and served the guests, maintaining the illusion of effortlessness and providing a 
carefully planned background to Silven’s mentalism and magic.

“The idea of emotional memory is closely tied to food. Taste, drink, smell take us back to a moment in time. This is a powerful thing,” Silven says.

Katherine Meinzen, a senior in hospitality and tourism management, wipes drips from the wild mushroom consommé vessels.

After a celebrated off-broadway run, Silven chose Purdue as part of his world tour because of the acclaim of its top-ranked hospitality and tourism management program and the skill of chef Ambarish Lulay, a silver medalist at the Culinary Olympics.

“The guests will see extraordinary things, and the food and service should match,” Silven says.

A student staff

 It was a rare opportunity for students, says Lulay, who also is a clinical professional instructor in Purdue’s School of Hospitality and Tourism Management.

“When Purdue Convocations presented the idea, I thought it was really, really cool,” he says. “Very rarely do we have the opportunity to provide a true fine-dining experience. The students’ normal lab was turned upside down, and they became part of a performance. It is neat to see them measure up.”

The performances took the place of a portion of the Introduction to Restaurant Management and Advanced Food Service Management courses. In these classes, students plan and open a restaurant, and each rotates through positions as chef, kitchen manager, front of house manager, server and cook.

Chef Ambarish Lulay and students plate dinner for “At the Illusionist’s Table.”

Three Purdue staff members, including Lulay, assisted the kitchen crew of six students and 12 student servers. As an event, the service for 24 was small, but the required attention to detail was beyond anything the students had experienced before, Lulay says.

“Synchronization was the key to the experience,” he says. “We had specific cues for when to bring out the courses and rehearsed the service. Two minutes here or there could ruin something in the show.”

In the immersive experience every detail matters — the warm, soft light of flickering candles, the earthy smell of mushrooms and coffee grounds, smoke wafting as a dome lifts to reveal the main course, the smooth taste of Scotch. All were entwined with the illusions of the show.

“Our mission is education, and we have a restaurant run by students, some of whom have never served before. But our students are phenomenal. Not one plate dropped, nothing spilled and the synchronization was perfection. I’m so proud of our department and students.”

Bryan Tishmack, a sophomore HTM student, says the event offered new experiences in the kitchen.

“The intricacy of the plating was fun and much more playful than what we had done before,” says Tishmack, who was part of the kitchen staff in all the performances. “Figuring out how to make a dinner like this work and how to train new servers very quickly, but still have things work like a well-oiled machine, was a great learning experience. It pushed us and expanded my abilities.”

Bryan Tishmack, a sophomore in hospitality and tourism management, puts the finishing touches on the main course.

Magdolene DeVoe (HTM ’16) led the servers each night, providing the cues for the synchronized service.

“Fine dining is an illusion itself,” she says. “It is beautiful, but behind the scenes can be chaotic. This experience took the idea of the fine-dining illusion to another level.”

A magical menu

The menu included an appetizer of wild mushroom consommé with truffle and quail egg, followed by a Scotch tasting and a main course of seared and smoked duck breast, parsnip purée, braised red cabbage, crispy shiitake mushrooms and coffee soil. Dessert was a chocolate mousse with sesame snow and pomegranate, and a wine pairing was served with all courses.

“Think of the emotion you want to evoke in a person when they take that first bite,” Lulay says of the menu planning process. “The food can influence the entire experience. It is your conversation with a guest. You may want to wow them or to challenge them. With Scott, we knew the guests were here to be wowed. We tried to do some of that in our food.”

Promising partnerships

HTM and Purdue Convocations have been building their collaboration, Lulay says. The team paired dinners with musical performances in the atrium outside the John Purdue Room and brought a cultural food festival to campus.

“It is a natural fit and Convocations is so creative with their events,” he says. “I hope we have more events like this in the future.”

The main course, topped with smoke-filled glass domes, is lined up for service.

Todd Wetzel, executive director of Purdue Convocations, says: “Partnering with HTM has been a very happy collaboration for us here in Convos. Our work involves research, a strong command of aesthetics and a refined ability to execute every detail in the moment —repeatedly. And the same is true of the HTM team. We quickly discovered that we were simpatico minds on nearly every element of this project, and we have now deepened our mutual respect for each other’s expertise and capabilities.”

HTM and Purdue students also have partnered with those in the industry to help test concepts and new ventures, including designing, marketing and executing a ramen pop-up restaurant, Lulay says.

“Partnering with outside groups gives an invaluable real-life element to a student’s experience,” he says. “Students will learn things they wouldn’t in the classroom, and it is a perfect way to show off our skills.”

The experience benefits the restaurants as well, by providing exposure to a large group of people and putting their brand in front of a generation that is very open to authentic flavors and trying new things, Lulay says.

“It is great if our alumni think of us as an incubator for concepts,” he says.

The power of performance

 The show’s theme centered on connection in disparate times, Silven says.

“I am a conduit at the table to increase the experience naturally unfolding. Strangers meeting, coming together, causing extraordinary things to happen,” Silven says. “The sense of community at a shared table reminds us how we can come together. It should never be only about thinking, ‘How did he do it?’ It should inspire the audience and allow them to look at their own life in a different way.”

Learn more about the John Purdue Room