The caped crusader experience at London's Park Row is about providing an upmarket experience for guests with a Dark Knight twist
Superhero franchises, as any fanboy or girl knows, must regenerate to stay relevant. And fanboys don't come any more knowledgeable than James Bulmer, the founder and chief executive of Wonderland Restaurants. The former CEO of the Fat Duck Group and EMEA head of retail and licensing sales at Disney has turned his love of the DC Comics universe into Park Row, the Gotham City-themed restaurant-cum-immersive dining experience that opened near London's Piccadilly Circus in 2021.
Not everyone, however, shares Bulmer's obsession. "Why so serious?" wondered Nick Curtis in the Evening Standard about the decision to ban cosplay from the venue's five bars and restaurants. Other critics were bemused by Bulmer's light touch with theming. Grace Dent wrote in The Guardian of a "shoddily staged sort-of Batman experience that never, ever mentions Batman" before savaging "the worst type of cruise ship food".
What's more, the venue's most overtly (and immersively) themed experience, the Monarch Theatre – where each course of executive chef Karl O'Dell's £195 tasting menu is inspired by a different DC character – was described by Hilary Armstrong in The Daily Telegraph as "Alton Towers does fine dining".
Biff! Bam! Pow!
But as Batman's nemesis, Harvey Dent, says in The Dark Knight, "the night is darkest just before the dawn". And even if the critical cognoscenti had delivered an almighty kapow to Park Row, tourists loved it. "Straightaway the success of the Monarch has been that it's managed to tap into an international audience," Bulmer says. "We have an eclectic mix of high-end tourists who come to London to eat in the best restaurants and, thankfully, we very early found ourselves on that list."
They may not read the British critics but Park Row's clientele have perhaps been guided instead by Michelin, which listed the Monarch Theatre for the first time in February, citing its "creative and visually striking dishes". And while regeneration is occurring at every level – Alyn Williams was appointed executive chef of Park Row last September and has introduced an American brasserie menu of sharing plates, while an immersive cocktail experience has launched in the bar – it is what Bulmer calls the "elevated food experience" of the Monarch Theatre that is about to undergo its biggest transformation since opening, with a new narrative and menu to premiere this summer.
"The challenge when we opened was that we'd never created a restaurant like this," Bulmer explains, "where everyone is served in unison at the moment when a wall changes and a narrator talks subtly about a character. That format won't change, but what we've got to do is evolve the story that gives the food relevance. Food and drink are the core of what we do."
Creative kitchen
O'Dell has been executive chef of the Monarch Theatre since Park Row opened. Bulmer's dad Derek, the former editor of the Michelin Guide Great Britain & Ireland-turned restaurant consultant, suggested his son get in touch with O'Dell after eating at Texture, where O'Dell was head chef. O'Dell admits he was initially wary of being involved in a superhero-themed restaurant. "But once James explained to me his ambition for where he wanted the restaurant to go, then it became something completely different, with a lot of room for creativity. It felt like going into the unknown but it was a risk that has paid off."
The Monarch serves one sitting – or "show", to use Bulmer's word – a night from Monday to Wednesday, two on Thursday, Friday and Sunday, and three on Saturdays. "Pretty much every show is now full," Bulmer says. "We've been running at about 92% occupancy, which is amazing."
Doesn't O'Dell find it restrictive having to match his food to a performance that rarely alters? The chef says half the menu varies seasonally and while dishes must fit the theme of each course, each dish can change. A soufflé moved to the end of the meal to provide a "lighter-than-air" partner to the Superman course has changed four times since opening.
"Sitting down, working on new dishes and then making them happen is the part I most enjoy," the chef says. "You can be more creative working around stories because you have to put more effort in. It's not just creating a dish and sending it out; it must match the screens and narration, and we have to work with certain colours in some dishes too."
Bulmer says one of the most important lessons from the Fat Duck was that diners must understand why a dish exists and the story it connects to. "There's something beautiful about creating a dish which tastes amazing but also has an added value , which is that it makes you laugh or smile or prompts a shared connection or nostalgia. That's the reason why I built this business. The deeper value of the food that's in front of you is what makes people want to come back again and again."
The menus are a collaborative process, with Bulmer in charge of the storytelling and O'Dell creating the dishes. A scallop ceviche with white chocolate, which O'Dell cooked for his trial, became the representation of greed for the Penguin's storyline when Bulmer suggested the addition of gold leaf.
Operational kryptonite
Not everything, however, is quite so creative, and Bulmer admits some dishes are governed as much by the operational practicalities of serving 20 diners at once as the emotion each dish is designed to evoke. "The kitchen is only 10 yards from the dining room, but 10 yards is a long way when you haven't got 20 servers," he says. "So how do you create statement vessels that can be taken easily from A to B? I've promised Karl a whole new range of exciting plateware."
Bulmer says that future plans include increasing the number of sittings and, further ahead, reacting to the 2025 release of Robert Pattinson's second outing as the caped crusader in The Batman Part II, "but executed in a very high-end premium way. We're not Bat Burger."
Surely Bulmer's dad must have some tips on how his son can win a Michelin star? "My dad hopefully will play a role, given that he still consults for most of the industry," Bulmer laughs. "A Michelin star is very much our ambition. You don't bring on someone with Karl's talent if that isn't your focus. We're redoubling our efforts to go bigger and try to make more of an impression on Michelin."
Does the Michelin inclusion leave Bulmer and O'Dell feeling vindicated after the early criticism? "I certainly can't say it's proved our point yet because we're really early in our journey," Bulmer says. "I'm a fan of all movies and TV shows. I'm the guy who sits at a bar and orders a martini and for that brief second thinks that I'm James Bond. Escapism is the whole point of Wonderland. Eventually we'll tell all kinds of different stories."
A Michelin star shining over Gotham next to the bat signal? Holy mackerel!
Dynamic duo
Park Row is a partnership between Wonderland Restaurants, Warner Bros Consumer Products and DC. It is owned and operated by Wonderland Restaurants, under license from Warner Bros Consumer Products. On paper it sounds like a relationship with the potential to be as fraught as a grand finale showdown between Batman and the Joker, but Bulmer makes Warner Bros sound as business-savvy as Bruce Wayne.
"We have a very long-term licensing agreement in terms of basic mechanics," Bulmer says. "The reality is we treat them as if they're business partners and part of our team. We speak to them once a week and, creatively, we work on everything together. We flew out last summer to spend four or five days locked away in a room thinking about what's coming next. They know better than we do how to tell a good story."
Was it difficult initially to persuade Warner Bros that a DC-themed restaurant was a good idea? "Not at all. They've been incredibly entrepreneurial. They understand the power of food and drink. Once we showed them how we were going to execute Park Row and that it wasn't going to be another brand where you sit around memorabilia, they were massively for it. Hopefully it will be a long relationship."
