LA’s Immersive Fine Dining Experience The Gallery Is No Mickey Mouse Operation

Don’t dismiss ground-breaking immersive fine dining destination The Gallery as a gimmick. Located in downtown Los Angeles, foodies have been flocking to the dynamic, almost 8,000 square foot space since it opened in February.

It’s the brainchild of immersive entertainment visionaries Daren Ulmer and Emmy-winning creative executive Chuck Fawcett, both of whom have worked with Disney and Universal on theme park experiences. At the heart of the complex is The Gallery Theater, home to the inaugural signature dining show, Elementa, a culinary and visual exploration of nature’s essential forces. Even after a slew of rave reviews and frequently sold out sittings, the partners understand some people will still be sceptical.

“There is probably a bit of back patting in this, but I pride myself on knowing our audience, in all the work that I do, and knowing ahead of time what the response is going to be,” Ulmer enthuses. “Quite frankly, this is not a huge surprise. I am very pleased the response to the food has been as positive as it is. That was a goal. We knew that people would look at us as a theater and some kind of kitchy, projectiony thing first, and that people would be sceptical about the food. It doesn’t surprise me that they like it because we worked really hard on it, but it has resonated with people more quickly than I thought it would.”

With a price tag of $200 per person, the partners knew they would have to deliver more than just a good time. In a city renowned for its world-class food, where many restaurants don’t survive past the one-year mark, they knew the quality of the food and the show had to be top notch. The creative and delicious set menu is crafted by Chef Joshua Whigham, whose experience includes tenure as Chef de Cuisine at José Andrés’ acclaimed restaurants, including The Bazaar in Los Angeles and Minibar in Washington, D.C. The multi-course food and wine pairings, with vegan and gluten-free options available, are carefully selected to complement Elementa‘s storytelling playing out around diners.

The Gallery Learns From Popular Experiences That Came Before

Ulmer, founder and Creative Executive at Mousetrappe Media, and Fawcett had the idea just before the pandemic, following the boom in immersive attractions such as the Van Gogh Exhibition: The Immersive Experience.

“Every one of those venues was saying, ‘Okay, what’s next? Is this going to continue to work if we start slapping Renoir, then Monet, and then whatever into there?’ It’s great that the public got to experience those things, but we wanted to build something richer than just projecting on the four walls around you, and something more repeatable,” he muses. “Elementa is something that people will want to come back and do again, but what we really built was a venue that can host multiple menus, multiple shows, and for the long term, to be sustainable because of the food component and the variety of experiences that we could create in there.”

But Fawcett wanted to ensure that what they offered was not a repeat of what others in the space had already succeeded with. “Coming out of the pandemic gave us all some time to slow down and reflect on the world, our lives, and our careers. Daren, coming from the media production background and me from the animatronic side in the theme park industry, we just started to ask, ‘Is there a way to put something different out there that really takes into account both our experiences?’” he explains. “We started to look at what had been done out there, and some of the examples are pretty tried and true, like Eatrenalin in Rust, Germany, or The Monarch Theatre in London, England. We started to wonder if there was a way to do something better and richer out there in the universe, and we started to talk about various ways that we could do that, ranging from some smaller to larger scale projects.”

“Daren had spent some time really thinking about the space and how to create a rich, 360 immersive experience where the guests come in and they’re absolutely blown away by the food they put in their mouth, the drinks they taste and the visuals they see, the sound that they hear and even the smells that they experience.”

The visuals extend to the long tables where diners can interact with projections that will respond to touch.

“They are one of the things that, in my opinion, really adds such a delightful, fun element of the immersive experience,” Fawcett continues. “The guests can choose to participate or sit back and passively watch others get involved. It’s not a requirement, but if you do jump in, it’s a lot of fun and becomes a neat conversation piece. That’s the part that really has gone viral on us. People are really talking about that in the reviews that we’ve received. A lot of influencers are coming, and they’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, that part is cool and the food is fantastic.'”

Another major decision for the pair was The Gallery’s location. They wanted the venture to be nestled in a hub that was already proving popular with foodies and fans of live entertainment. Before settling on DTLA, they considered Glendale and Pasadena, LA’s Westside, Culver City, and trendy Los Feliz. Hollywood was ruled out for fear that The Gallery would be dismissed as a tourist gimmick.

“Then we started to concentrate on the Arts District,” Ulmer explained. “We’re adjacent to Broadway, which is having a little bit a rejuvenation, you’ve got the LA Live, the Los Angeles Music Center and The Broad nearby, so because what we’re doing is an artistic theatrical experience, that’s a centralized location for all for greater LA made a lot of sense.”

“Downtown LA is the place I go for shows, it is the place that I go to certain restaurants like Perch or 71 Above or whatever, and then this particular location showed up. We saw the growth and all of that momentum towards South Park. The Omni is opening on the next block in July, and that will be the tallest apartment building in Southern California at 60 stories. This location also had a little deli cafe on the corner. We saw an opportunity to have this magnet that could bring people in from all over Southern California, and hopefully from all around the world, as well as those 80,000 to 100,000 people within walking distance. The two complemented each other and gave us a lot of flexibility for full venue buyouts and events. There was a point where that started to make sense.”

The Gallery Sells Out And Appeals To A Wider Audience Than Expected

Three months in, the team is quietly confident. The reviews remain strong, and they are attracting a wider audience than expected.

“It’s tough to please all the people all the time when you have a chef’s tasting type meal like we have, but I think we’ve done a really admirable job,” Fawcett explains. “We spent a lot of time trying and testing different concepts, asking, ‘Is this going to appeal to 80 percent or 95 percent of people?’ One of the things that surprised me was that a couple of recent groups came in and brought children. We had never really thought about Elementa being that demographic, and a couple of people had kids around the nine to 11 year old range, and they’ve loved it as well. They have to have a certain palette, but that has been surprising and fun to hear about.”

With Hollywood on the doorstep, The Gallery’s space and technology, as well as its relationships with Disney and Universal theme parks, open up a world of possibilities for lucrative TV and movie IP tie-ins.

“I probably shouldn’t name any of them yet, since these are early discussions, but there have been a couple who have expressed interest,” Ulmer teases. “We have to evaluate for ourselves the value of a licensing-type situation versus building our collection of IP, but there are a lot of possibilities here. From a business standpoint, we’ve built a platform, and then we built this brand on top of that, so there are multiple directions in which licensing could come into this.”

Fawcett adds, “That is to the credit of Daren’s team and the artists that have been working their tails off for over 20 years at Mousetrappe. You talk about our theme park friends, and yes, we have filled the room with the highest levels of our friends at Disney and Universal, and it makes you very nervous, but they all have been really impressed. Those clients give us those accolades and then hopefully go back to their circles and say, ‘Hey, so in the next parade, or spectacular or experience, we want to definitely be even more mindful of Mousetrappe and Darren’s team.’ It has been very positive.”

Not wanting to jump the shark, Ulmer and Fawcett are already thinking about the future. In addition to devising new shows to keep guests coming back, they have a plan for growth that includes replicating the Horizon Lounge bar element of The Gallery.

“There are other cities that would have that combination of local base that have the thirst or hunger for the type of food and type of entertainment level, so think Las Vegas, Orlando, a handful of other keystone cities like Miami or Dallas,” Ulmer reveals. “Internationally, London is a great target for us. London is ahead of us in this kind of experience, but we would still do well there. I see 20 to 30 versions of The Gallery as a whole, and then the Horizon Lounge, because that could stand alone, separate from the theatrical experience. If you take a Denver or Portland, or an airport or a cruise ship, and think of that cityscape lounge being part of the local scene, but they may not have quite the marketplace for 80 people, five or six times a week, in a dining experience.”

Fawcett concludes, “The plan all along was to build the proof of concept in a first location, and the location was primarily selected because Daren lives in LA and the Mousetrappe team is right there. It seemed logical to have a place to drive to, rather than fly to for a first location. Moving this one to a point of catching our breath and stabilizing it financially and operationally is the next step beyond that. Once we do that, we have a lot of people prepared to step up, talk about a plan to scale it and put it into multiple locations, and raise money to get behind that. The hardest part is what people have called unit one. Getting the first one birthed and turning it into a profitable endeavour is a tough thing to do. We picked an unbelievably difficult time and a challenging market with a new concept to try all this, but people like what we’re doing.”