Movies served with a multi-course meal

Cinemas are serving food tailored to the films on show in an effort to make movies immersive

- Sumeet Keswani

On an average weekend in the National Capital Region (NCR), there are heritage walks and nature trails early in the morning; poetry readings and book club meetings in the day; tastings galore—from coffee and chocolates to wines and whiskies—to fill the evenings, and some fake weddings too. As these endless options for communal experiences vie for our attention (and money), there's one pastime that has remained relatively unchanged: The movie.

Most halls have stuck with the same old recipe of overpriced snacks and carbonated drinks. So, when I came across a social media ad for a “gourmet cinema experience”, I was intrigued. The films on offer weren't new but the kind you didn’t mind rewatching. The price was steep—₹3,000 per person—but it was a five-course meal inspired by the movie. It was an experience served by the Sunset Cinema Club (SCC), which currently runs events in Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Pune, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Amritsar, Goa, Dehradun, and Chandigarh. The nine-year-old company started with an open-air screening of Pulp Fiction in Connaught Place in 2016. The experiment was such a hit—with casual beanbag seating and snacks—that it led to a three-day film festival in Chanakyapuri, Delhi, with food trucks, cocktails and artists in 2017.