Spence Charles, Youssef Jozef, Levitan Carmel A
Department of Experimental Psychology, Oxford University, Oxford, United Kingdom.
Chef/Patron, Kitchen Theory, London, United Kingdom.
Front Psychol. 2021 Jul 21;12:683569. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.683569. eCollection 2021.
In many parts of the world, restaurants have been forced to close in unprecedented numbers during the various Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns that have paralyzed the hospitality industry globally. This highly-challenging operating environment has led to a rapid expansion in the number of high-end restaurants offering take-away food, or home-delivery meal kits, simply in order to survive. While the market for the home delivery of food was already expanding rapidly prior to the emergence of the Covid pandemic, the explosive recent growth seen in this sector has thrown up some intriguing issues and challenges. For instance, concerns have been raised over where many of the meals that are being delivered are being prepared, given the rise of so-called "dark kitchens." Furthermore, figuring out which elements of the high-end, fine-dining experience, and of the increasingly-popular multisensory experiential dining, can be captured by those diners who may be eating and drinking in the comfort of their own homes represents an intriguing challenge for the emerging field of gastrophysics research; one that the chefs, restaurateurs, restaurant groups, and even the food delivery companies concerned are only just beginning to get to grips with. By analyzing a number of the high-end fine-dining home food delivery options that have been offered (in the UK and in the US) in this narrative review, we highlight a number of promising directions for those wanting to optimize the at-home multisensory dining experience, wherever in the world they might be.
在世界许多地方，在新冠疫情期间实施的各种封锁措施使全球酒店业陷入瘫痪，大量餐馆被迫史无前例地关门。这种极具挑战性的经营环境导致提供外卖食品或家庭送餐套餐的高端餐厅数量迅速增加，仅仅是为了生存。尽管在新冠疫情出现之前，食品外卖市场就已经在迅速扩张，但该行业最近的爆发式增长引发了一些有趣的问题和挑战。例如，随着所谓“黑暗厨房”的兴起，人们对许多外卖餐食的制作地点提出了担忧。此外，对于那些可能在自己舒适家中吃喝的食客来说，弄清楚高端精致餐饮体验以及日益流行的多感官体验式餐饮中的哪些元素能够被捕捉到，这对新兴的美食物理学研究领域来说是一个有趣的挑战；而厨师、餐馆老板、餐饮集团，甚至相关的食品配送公司才刚刚开始应对这个挑战。在这篇叙述性综述中，通过分析（在英国和美国）已提供的一些高端精致餐饮家庭送餐选项，我们为那些希望优化无论身处世界何地的家庭多感官用餐体验的人，突出了一些有前景的方向。
