Pop-up world

Global – One Star House Party (OSHP) is a 20-country pop-up dining project that explores the culture of each featured location.

Founder James Sharman and his team plan to create 20 restaurants in 20 countries in 20 months
Their journey began in Beijing in September 2016 and will end in Hong Kong in August 2018

The menu for each pop-up restaurant is inspired by the team’s experiences in each country, such as harvesting fresh Sichuan pepper plants in Beijing and cultivating bamboo to use in a glutinous rice dish at their Vietnam eatery.

In addition to designing each menu from scratch, the OSHP team create each restaurant space by hand using local materials. Each chef is responsible for serving one course in each of the 20 locations and explaining the narrative behind it to the diners.

‘Imagine hiking through Northern Vietnam and stumbling across a group of locals in a flurry of activity, cooking around a fire, and eating with them,’ says Sharman. ‘We are in this incredible position where we are discovering culture through food instead of the other way around.’

The Big Picture

A new wave of diplomacy is emerging in relation to food, where brands are increasingly using taste and smell to elicit an emotional response from consumers. Read our Culinary Diplomacy microtrend to find out more.