Lunch? It's pie in the sky

Published on Saturday 31 July 2010 18:12

"ONCE YOU get up there you'll be absolutely fine," assures a woman in a blue fleece and a hard hat, strapping me into a black leather chair so securely I wonder how on earth I'm going to get out again. Peering up at the enormous crane responsible for the lives of myself and my 21 fellow diners, I'm suddenly not so sure.

• Kept in suspense at Festival in the Sky in Princes Street Gardens some of Scotland's best chefs will be serving up food to diners hanging from a crane

Welcome to the Festival in the Sky, perhaps the wackiest and most flamboyant event at this year's Edinburgh Festival. The concept is simple. Sort of. Diners will be levitated 100ft above Edinburgh on a mobile table, where they will be buffeted around by the wind while dining on a gourmet meal, supping on Cava, and trying not to drop their knives on unsuspecting passers-by below. Call me unadventurous, but I'd rather listen to a 30-minute concerto for fingernail and blackboard.

Dining in the Sky originated in Belgium four years ago and has since become a regular feature in cities as diverse as Las Vegas and Dubai. Last year, it caught the eye of events company Dada, who decided to bring it to Scotland. The table - which has been used for a number of events in London, including the first task on this year's Big Brother - makes its public debut today in Edinburgh's West Princes Street Gardens, where it will be ensconced for the duration of the month.

"What better place to have something like this than at the Edinburgh Festival?" asks Alan MacCaskill, director of Dinner in the Sky and Dada. "It has been voted one of the top ten dining experiences in the world. It's inventive and utterly unique."

But hang on, what if you feel the call of nature up there in the sky? "You're up there for 30 minutes, and we have toilets on the ground you can use before and afterwards. But if you really need to get down, we can have you on the ground in one minute," assures MacCaskill.

Phew. With all that sorted, we take off, and the reality of the situation becomes clear as Edinburgh opens up beneath me and I realise there is nothing between my feet and the rooftops but open sky.

To enhance the situation the wind then starts up, and the table starts to rock gently. It feels about as natural as a chocolate teapot and, yes, I'll admit it, a little terrifying.

"Er, I think we'll take it down about 15 feet, to avoid the wind," says the Health and Safety officer, and slowly we are lowered to a slightly calmer altitude.

Finally, I pluck up the courage to lift my hands off my lap and open the silver salver over my lunch plate - which is, after all, why we're here. A range of Scotland's best chefs will be taking to the sky over the course of the month to cook, including Tony Borthwick of the Plumed Horse and Roy Brett of Ondine, and there is a heavy emphasis on the quality of the food.

So, expecting pie in the sky, I'm rather disappointed to discover that my vegetarian option features just one measly-looking rice cake, a small dod of hummus and baba ganoush, and a few slices of vegetable suspended in jelly (although this item wins points for accurately representing how I am feeling by this point).

Meat-eaters meanwhile, are given cheese and biscuits with slivers of smoked salmon and venison and a small terrine. All nicely presented and relatively tasty, but even with all the novelty surrounding it, 42.50 does seems a hefty price to pay for a rice cake in the sky.

The views are marvellous, of course, if you can bring yourself to actually look at them. The castle looks so close at times that you feel you can reach out and touch it, and it is fascinating to see Edinburgh from such an unusual, perhaps even never seen before, perspective.

The dining in the sky concept turns the mundane into the extraordinary. On the ground a rice cake is just a rice cake. Take it up 100ft and it's a super fun rice cake in the sky. But after that particular revelation, it all becomes something of an endurance test. Can I hold on to my glass of Cava without it being blown away? (Answer: no, it went flying off and spilt its contents over some important looking equipment.) Can I stop gripping the side of the table long enough to take a forkful of vegetable jelly? When can I go back down?

Dinner in the Sky is undoubtedly unique, and if you're an adrenaline junky or a masochist, you'll probably love it.

Me? I'll be eating my meals on terra firma from now on.