Bompas & Parr to bring immersive...

Forces of Nature, a lava cooking experience, and Incense Road, a multi-sensory dining experience will rock AlUla

Immersive gastronomy pioneers Bompas & Parr are activating two new dining concepts in AlUla, an area home to ancient civilisations and the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Hegra Archaeological Site of striking rock formations.

Taking place this month, Forces of Nature offers diners an incredible opportunity to sample local produce, cooked across a stream of molten lava heated to a staggering 1350°c. The studio’s venture builds on the ground-breaking work of one of the world’s foremost experts in molten rock, Professor Robert Wysocki from Syracuse University in New York.

Bompas & Parr has teamed up with regional suppliers to bring to life the heart of a volcano at the table. This immersive experience features a set menu with local ingredients. Lava technicians will pour out the molten rocks in a performance spectacle, where guests’ dinner is cooked across fresh hot lava.

Food will be seared to perfection in mere seconds, or smoked, roasted and grilled over three roaring fire pits

The Forces of Nature set menus are prepared by expert pit-masters inspired by the origins of cooking on open flames, featuring whole salt baked celeriac, charred fillets of beef finished across molten lava, and pit-roasted saddles of goat, grilled across fire pits. Drink offerings include smoked, flamed and charred cocktails, as well as coffee and tea and a heated table side with red-hot loggerheads (drink pokers), fresh from the fire.

SIGN UP NOW: GET THE CONNECTING TRAVEL DAILY NEWSLETTER FOR FREE

For the Incense Road activation taking place next month, Bompas & Parr has collaborated with multimedia storytelling company Avocado Toast to bring to life a 360° immersive digital dining room. Drawing on the expert knowledge of curators and historical researchers, the experience aims to evoke the stories of the Incense Road that was at its height some 2,000 years ago.

Bompas & Parr’s Incense Road immersive dining experience

Over six courses, stories from traders and historical icons are brought to life through audio-visual projections and paired with food, drinks, and an evolving incense scent-scape.

Situated around a vast communal table in a custom-built tent at Nakhil Brzan Farm, the dinner recreates the ancient gathering places of the Nabataeans in Hegra into a contemporary luxury setting.

Forces of Nature, 7pm to 1am, 18 to 26 February 2022; Incense Road, 7pm to 12am (first service, 7pm to 9:15pm; second service, 9:45pm to 11:45pm), 3 to 11 March 2022. For more information and bookings, visit www.experiencealula.com