A totally indulgent Art of Lunch experience awaits people at Echoes Restaurant in Katoomba on Sunday, July 28.
Head chef of the Hydro Majestic, Saran Sasikumar, in collaboration with the head chef at Echoes, Ray Mongan, have been dreaming up a bohemian banquet.
The first bite is an 'amuse bouche' (amuse your mouth). Exquisite to both the eye and palate, these dainty pre-dinner morsels hint at the chef's virtuosity with colour, taste and texture and stimulate the appetite for the delicacies to follow. As the Art of Lunch progresses, more taste tantalising courses follow until the dessert - a mysterious Magic Pudding.
Imagine a perfect gold-dusted chocolate dome, tap it sharply, gasp in amazement as a wisp of smoke curls out and reveal an exquisitely formed garden of delights.
Blue Mountains Bohemia is an immersive experience, inviting people back back to the heyday of the artistic bohemian lifestyle led by Norman and Rose Lindsay in the 1930s-40s at their home at Faulconbridge. Norman Lindsay is one of Australia's luminary artists and writers of who it was said: "he painted women as if they were goddesses". Echoes features a suite of Lindsay's exotic etchings and a large-scale reproduction of his famous painting, "The Lute Player".
Reflecting on Norman Lindsay's famous painting, there will be a 30-minute concert of lute music by Llew Kiek, one of Australia's foremost world music and early music plucked string players. For The Art of Lunch he will perform on long and short necked lutes playing a variety of medieval, folk and world music tunes collected over many years' work with Mara!, the Renaissance Players, the Marais project and Kim Sanders and Friends, and some improvisations.
Calling herself his "model wife", Lindsay's muse, wife, manager and master print maker, Rose Lindsay, recounted humorous and sharply observant episodes of their life together in her books and oral history recordings. Blue Mountains actor Catherine Lockley, who has a passion for Australian roles, makes a stunning appearance as Rose, drawing on stories from her memoirs in a series of telling vignettes.
Blue Mountains Bohemia has been developed by Earthly Delights Events in concert with the Norman Lindsay Gallery at Faulconbridge. A special exhibition of artworks featuring Rose as his model, costumes they designed, and her virtuosity as a print maker, compliments the Blue Mountains Bohemia event at Echoes.
The Art of Lunch is a unique showcase for the talents of Blue Mountains Artists and Musicians and Chefs. Go to the website http://artoflunch.com.au/ which is packed with information about each event. Season tickets, group bookings and early bird discounts are available online.
The Art of Lunch project has received funding from the Australian Government's Building Our Future, as well as support from local enterprises Scenic World and BMR Accounting.