This food looks too good to be real — and it is
A perfectly twirled bite of spaghetti hangs off a fork mid-air. Next to it, a bowl of ramen and a katsudon — freshly cooked eggs and pork cutlet – fall fresh out of the pan. Plates are stacked high with colorful sashimi and elaborate parfaits. It’s a feast for the eyes — and the eyes alone.
These are “shokuhin sampuru” — the highly realistic food replicas commonly displayed in front of restaurants in Japan, intended to lure customers inside. A familiar sight in Japan, a vast array of these replicas are now on display in London in an exhibition that is the first of its kind, according to Simon Wright, the show’s curator and director of programming at Japan House London.
“Looks Delicious!” features replicas made by the Iwasaki Group, the first company dedicated to the production of these fake foods which remains today the largest producer in Japan. (The company needs to make on average one replica every 40 minutes in order to keep the business viable, according to Wright.) Its founder, Takizo Iwasaki, was reportedly inspired to create wax models of food from a childhood memory of seeing candlewax fall into a puddle and form into the shape of a flower.
A version of Iwasaki’s first ever replica — modeled after an omelette his wife made — is on display at the exhibition, named “kinen omu,” or celebration omelette. Over time, Iwasaki developed a production method using wax and agar jelly molds, though now the company mainly uses PVC.
