Around Town: This Mumbai dinner lets you take the magic home, but is it worth Rs 9,000?

Imagine a night of mentalism with no mentalist in the room. That’s what The Magic Table offers, paired with a five-course menu. Curated by award-winning mental magicians Thommy Ten & Amélie van Tass, popularly known as The Clairvoyants, the evening unfolds in an almost dark room inside a hotel restaurant.

The immersive experience has come to India for the first time, to Grand Hyatt BKC, for a period of six months. It takes place inside the hotel’s Indian restaurant, Suma, where a section has been cordoned off with temporary curtains and fitted with a new ceiling to house the projection and sound system.

Soon the Clairvoyants greet you virtually, projected onto every table with the support of a surround sound system, and introduce themselves and the evening. The first cocktail arrives with them, a concoction of white wine and gin with chocolate bitters, garnished with a key made from dark chocolate.

This is part of the pairing, priced at Rs 2,500. We sampled The Grand Illusion Menu, priced at Rs 9,000, which opened with a warm, creamy artichoke soup with truffle and parmesan for vegetarians, and a lobster bisque with caviar for non-vegetarians.

The latter was finished with an oil that lent an herbaceous note. The Clairvoyants return between courses, each time with a game. The first is a card trick in which they virtually pick the card you would choose from a deck of five.

The second features a locked box with keys, an ode to the great escapologist Harry Houdini, where diners guess the code and unlock the box using clues projected on the table. The third aims to reveal who you are. You choose from five options on the table, then walk a certain number of steps as asked, deleting options along the way, until the one you selected remains.

The tricks are truly immersive. Diners of all ages took part, and we didn’t see a single one sitting out. The evening keeps you thinking about how you were led to the answer, and the mentalist in each of us kicks in as we wonder whether there was a way to dodge them.

Pia plays a big part in keeping everyone involved. The only letdown was the food. The opening course whetted our appetite, but what followed was good only in parts. We liked the watermelon tartare in a Vietnamese nuoc cham and the nihari sauce on the morel course, though the paneer-stuffed morels didn’t work for us.

The moilee sauce was delicious, but the big piece of sea bass needed more of it. The dahi bhalla fell short, and the lamb on jeera aloo could have had far more robust flavours. Dessert redeemed some of it: a chocolate hazelnut torte with bits of strawberry and blueberry.

Towards the end, when we were wondering how we had been led to the answer in the last trick, we were handed a scroll. The Clairvoyants explained that the QR code on it leads to the tricks we had taken part in that evening.

It made the inner child in us jump a little, and had us wondering whom we could try them on at the next get-together. Is it worth it? Go for the magic. Kids (if not scared of dark) especially had a great time, and they have their own menu.

With the pairing, the evening comes to Rs 11,500 per head, and at that price the food should be as memorable as the tricks. Right now, it isn’t. Heena Khandelwal is a Special Correspondent with The Indian Express, Mumbai.

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