The benefits of experiential dining for you, your team and your customer

Online at the Better Hospitality Conference 2-3pm 20th April 2021

Customers have been starved of experience this year and realised that they miss restaurants not just for the food, but for the atmosphere and whole experience they create. Meanwhile restaurants have had time to reflect and some of them, like The Ethicurean near Bristol, have decided to reopen as ticketed experiences rather than straightforward food service. This discussion explores the benefits of experiences as a business model in hospitality; how it helps you differentiate your offering and keep customers coming back; what people can learn about themselves and the world through edu-tainment; the benefits of ticketing in terms of managing costs and creating a better work life balance for your team; the role of food and hospitality experiences in enabling staycation escapism and supporting mental health.

About the speakers

Matthew Pennington

Matthew & brother Iain Pennington are the founders and owners of award-winning restaurant, The Ethicurean, located south of Bristol. Nestled in a Victorian walled garden, the restaurant offers views of the bucolic Mendip hills.

Surprising though it may sound, the idea of simply owning a restaurant was never their ambition; it still isn’t. Instead, they strive to be part of something bigger, something that places good food at the centre of a healthy sustainable, ethical and responsible lifestyle. It’s an ethos that they nourish in their team and guests alike – to develop a deeper understanding of the wider natural world’s connections, behaviours and processes.

Jozef Youssef

Jozef is the founder of Kitchen Theory, an experimental culinary research and design studio specialising in multisensory food experiences, with an award wining chef’s table dining experience. He is also author of Molecular Gastronomy at Home (Firefly 2013), a primer on molecular gastronomy techniques intended for avid home cooks looking to up their game in the kitchen.

Over the years Jozef has pursued his ambition of ‘improving global wellbeing through innovations in gastronomy by working with some of the UK’s leading scientists and academic institutions.

Jenny McNeill

Jenny McNeill is the Director of Food at Flavorology. Sister company to immersive dining pioneers, Gingerline, Flavourology are the go-to experts for multi-sensory content creation, delivering brand activations that tease the taste buds and tickle the senses. Extensive experience on the creative side of marketing strategy, folds smoothly into Jenny’s love of experimenting in the kitchen, at the helm of the company.

Professor Charles Spence – chair

Professor Spence is professor of Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford. He is interested in how people perceive the world around them and in particular how our brains manage to process the information from each of our different senses (such as smell, taste, sight, hearing, and touch) to form the extraordinarily rich multisensory experiences that fill our daily lives. His research focuses on how a better understanding of the human mind will lead to the better design of multisensory foods, products, interfaces, and environments in the future. He and his group are currently working on problems associated with the design of foods that maximally stimulate the senses. Charles is also interested in the effect of the indoor environment on mood, well-being, and performance (together with ICI).