London is enjoying a boom in boutique cinemas, the Evening Standard is reporting. Several new theaters (or "theatres"--this is London, after all!) have opened across the capital, from the independently owned Hackney Picturehouse and The Lexi in Kensal Rise to the HMV Curzon in Wimbledon. Today, Britain's biggest cinema chain, Odeon, is reopening its site at the Whiteleys shopping center in Bayswater following a major renovation.
Odeon Whiteleys now has only five screens, each with reclining leather seats for no more than 50 people. Tickets cost up to $27 each—double the usual price of a trip to the movies.
No popcorn and flat sodas here: Chef Rowley Leigh, who runs the Le Café Anglais restaurant in Whiteleys, has been brought in to supervise the food, which will be available seaside. Audience members can just touch a button to alert restaurant-trained staff to take their order from a "finger, fork and spoon" menu. Dishes include tuna sushi, fried squid and venison chili. Best of all, the tables incorporate a layer of rubber in their design, so that the dishes don't make a sound when they are placed down.
Odeon boss Rupert Gavin told the paper that he hopes to develop the model "for many more Odeon sites across the UK in the coming years."
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