Tutti foodie: Inhalation and installation in Milan

Milan – Conviviality was the thought of the evening as thousands thronged into the Gallery of Modern Art at the Villa Reale last night.

At the opening party of the Salone Internationale del Mobile, guests entered to be served vino spumante and individual jellies in plum red, orange, yellow, and bright emerald – made with crisp, real, sour apples – by food anarchists Sam Bompas and Harry Parr.

Also by Bompas & Parr was a transparent plastic tent filled with red mist: a Campari inhalation installation which guests were filing through, breathing in the sweet fog.

Before heading in to the buffet banquet provided by fellow foodies such as Fergus Henderson and Marije Vogelzang, guests including the LS:N Global team went down into the depths, and up into the halls, of the Gallery of Modern Art to see an incredible, multi-media presentation dedicated to food.

There were translucent fabric screens, half-hiding ancient statues and grotesques, and displaying videos of food rituals and preparation. On one, a pair of hands beat an egg. On another, they stirred passion fruit seeds. At one point we detected aromas of onion and bread. Later, near the passion fruit, the smells were much sweeter.

And at the end of the journey we emerged into a courtyard with a red scaffolding, and a buffet banquet that included polenta – two types – and profiteroles.

The name of the party and the exhibition, which will be open for a month, is ‘Tutti a Tavola’, Italian for ‘everyone to the table’ – a fitting name for a friendly event.