James Bulmer – Food for Thought

Park Row is London’s first DC Comics-inspired dining experience, created by Wonderland Restaurant Group (WRG) in partnership with Warner Brothers. The idea is James Bulmer’s, the founder of WRG, whose infectious zeal and whimsical imagination has conjured up an immersive experience that is a sumptuous feast for the eyes, ears and everything in-between.

Park Row is the first venture from the WRG, spearheaded by James Bulmer, formerly of Heston Blumenthal’s three-Michelin-starred Fat Duck in Bray. Growing up, Bulmer was always fascinated by the world of hospitality. His father, a former editor of the Michelin guide, immersed him in the world of gastronomy from a young age.

At the dawn of the millennium, Bulmer started his first company and ended up working at Disney before becoming CEO of the Fat Duck group where he honed the craft of storytelling with fine dining. He then approached Warner Bros with a canny idea: What if food and drink were the main actors on stage? What if consumers felt as if they could step over the threshold into the story as a lead protagonist?

“They [Warner Bros] very much understood the plan to execute a restaurant with exceptional taste and flavour that also offered moments of wonderment at a high level,” says Bulmer, “I very much wanted to stay clear of serving a burger with a bat sign on it.”

Bulmer, who has yet to “grow up”, has always been a comic-obsessive and is, predictably, chomping at the bit to see the new Batman film. The Peter Pan-like entrepreneur now relishes in a role that allows him the chance to tell the story in his own way. “As a frustrated writer, Park Row lets me execute my own version of Gotham City and the characters,” says Bulmer. “The city and characters are so complex, it is not as simple as labelling them a “hero” or “villain” – there’s so much more to them.”

Although my own DC-Comic knowledge is scarce, to say the least, a chance to visit the dumbfounding wonders of Park Row was an invitation I couldn’t resist. So after descending down the theatrically-spiralled staircase on a grizzly Sunday evening, the doors flung open and my guest and I were welcomed into the storybook world of Gotham City.

The former ballroom, and site of Marco Pierre-White’s daringly-named restaurant “Titanic”, is divvied up into four bars and dining spaces. Fans will recognise Pennyworth’s Bar — inspired by Alfred, the long-serving butler to the Wayne family, the Iceberg Lounge — the centrepiece bar themed after Oswald Cobblebot’s The Penguin casino, and the Rogues Gallery — an exhibition designed to represent Selina Kyle’s (Catwoman) acquisitions, including Blue Boy by Gainsborough.

And then, there is the belle of the ball, The Monarch Theatre. A 20-seat private dining room experience with an 11-course tasting menu that promises to take you on a “multi-sensory immersive journey through the heroes and villains of Gotham City.”

Before you are ushered into the clinically white theatre, you are taken to a limbo-like room and affronted, much to my clown-phobic horror, with Chuckles the Clown. Once you insert a “Gotham Dollar”, Chuckles stares past your aortic valve and into your soul to decide if you are “light” or “dark,” which decides the fate of your welcome drink.

Luckily, my “dark” soul meant I got to enjoy a sharply-sweet cocktail of mezcal coffee, café liqueur and vanilla and cocoa bitters whereas my guests’ “light” soul resulted in a bouji pina-colada. To accompany our drinks, we were given a small bowl of sizzling nitrogen popcorn made by one of our hosts in a frothing cauldron; it not only fizzed on your tongue but also gave you the power to breathe like an enraged dragon (or chronic vaper).

It easily could’ve been enough amusement for a Sunday evening but little did I know, the fun had only just begun. The ten-course extravaganza at the Monarch Theatre is an obstacle course for your palate. From the first course of two popsicles of ox tongue and horseradish and prawn and wasabi served on a black-and-gold Grecian bust, to the following course of a delicately-placed scallop with white chocolate — chichi enough to make you feel like a party -funding Russian oligarch.

The showstopper was the third-course, where smoke subdued the room and dived you into darkness as you are served a mini-greenhouse with a “poisonous” mushroom inside; but think less Novichok paté, and more parfait, port and brioche. The other standout dish was the “duck martini” inspired by Harley Quinn, which totally befuddles your tastebuds as you expect to taste a distinct flavour of vermouth, but it slips down like a beef consommé. For my guest, it was the slab of black Angus with a rock of truffle potato and smoked onion inspired by Bruce Wayne as well as the octopus, black cod and yuzu (also Bulmer’s favourite) that were the stars of the show.

Bulmer worked side-by-side with executive Chef Karl O’Dell to create the aforementioned menu. “For some courses, we started with the emotion,” says Bulmer, “we would then link it to the character — hero or villain — and choose certain ideas. So really I tend to write the narrative of the menu and Karl then makes it taste sensational.”

“Or Karl would come to me with ideas. For example, he came up with the scallop, white chocolate and caviar dish and to me, it was perfect. It represented greed, and there’s a gold leaf which makes it super indulgent.”

For James Bulmer’s last every meal, he, inevitably, opts for a cinematic theme. For his starter, he picks the Turkish delight from Narnia’s Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. For his main course, Joey from Friends special of two pizzas and for dessert, Willy Wonka’s three-course chewing gum meal (tomato soup, roast beef and blueberry). To drink, the five-dollar shake from Pulp Fiction.

At Park Row, the devil is truly in the detail. Whether it’s a levitating sorbet at the Monarch Theatre, a liquid molecule floating in space (yes, truly), a painting that pours you a cocktail from its frame, or an edible helium balloon, for Bulmer, the experience is all about entertainment “What I hope people get at Park Row are those little treasured moments of shared experiences,” he explains. “The story is, of course, important but we just want to make sure guests leave the venue smiling.”

Job done in that case. My smile was as wide as the Cheshire cats as my guest and I rollicked about the streets of Soho, unpacking our experience which felt as if we had been chucked outside of a space-time continuum and thrown head-first into the Mad Hatter’s tea party.