Translating Improv Theatre into Flavors

At the Flock Festival, the annual international unscripted theatre festival organized by Flock Theatre at Treehouse NDSM, improvisation, storytelling, and spontaneous expression take center stage.

When I was invited to create the closing dinner for the 2025 edition, I wanted to craft a culinary finale that acted as a physical echo of the entire week’s performances. Gathering artists, performers, and festival-goers around one shared table on the final night (June 29th), I conceived the dinner as narrative storytelling, designing every course to reflect a show, a theme, or an emotional beat experienced on stage.

"This menu was my way of turning food into storytelling: each dish a reflection of the performances, all gathered at one shared table."

My Storyteller's Menu

🥗 Starter — Flock Family

I opened the evening with a playful nest of vibrant colors and contrasting textures representing the tight-knit community built throughout the festival:

• The Dish: Crunchy noodles layered over a smooth pea cream, filled with yellow and red cherry tomatoes, fresh cress, and my homemade cauliflower mozzarella balls.

🍚 Main — The Polar Rice

For the main course, I designed an interactive experience inspired directly by the festival's final show, Polar Night:

• The Dish: An herbal risotto served atop a rich purple cabbage cream, paired with asparagus, bimi, and a crispy tapioca cloud.

• The Ritual: On the side, I placed small individual bottles of lemon juice, inviting guests to season their own plates. As the acidity reacted with the cabbage cream, everyone watched the colors shift right before their eyes—a visual metaphor for light emerging from darkness.

🍹 Palate Cleanser

Before transitioning to the sweet finale, I served a fresh seasonal juice to cleanse the palate and reset the senses for the final act.

🍰 Improv Dessert Trilogy

To close the night, I created a trio of desserts dedicated to three distinct performances from the festival week:

1. Shakespeare’s Magic: A delicate vanilla tartlet with rose petals and agave. 🌹

2. Buffoon Witches: Vibrant matcha balls paired with a raspberry cream, recalling the playful mischief of the performance. 🍵

3. On the Road: A biscuit compass resting on a sunflower seed cream, honoring the spirit of the bicycle road-trip show. 🧭

A Shared Table for Shared Stories

By merging plant-based culinary craft with theatrical improvisation, creating this closing dinner reminded me of why I love bringing people around a table: food can be so much more than nourishment—it becomes a living archive of collective memory and shared artistic experience.

📷 Credits & Visual Archives

Catering & Culinary Concept: Gabriele Bonomi / Vegan Bear Chef - Festival & Venue: @flock_festival by @flock_theatre at Treehouse NDSM - Photography: @francesco_silver_official, @carinemartinelli, Kalina Chupetlovska