Hit West End musical Mrs Doubtfire will put the eat into theatre for a delicious new partnership with luxury London restaurant, Colonel Saab, launching on 1 August.
The award-winning Indian dining concept will give fans a multi-sensory, pre-theatre dining experience, featuring cocktails and dishes inspired by famous scenes, which transform before your eyes and are not what they seem – just like the title character of Shaftesbury Theatre’s comedy show, and the iconic 90s film it’s based on.
Diners at Colonel Saab’s flagship Holborn restaurant can choose between the £60, five course and cocktail Mrs Doubtfire Experience Menu or the shorter, two course £35 Mrs Doubtfire Set Lunch Menu, before a four-minute stroll to the show.
The full experience includes a suitably theatrical, themed menu, starting with a colour-changing Chachi 420 gin cocktail, named after the hit Bollywood remake of Mrs Doubtfire, a culturally significant and major movie in India, which adopted its star, Robin Williams more than any other Hollywood actor.
Other courses inventively play on the idea of transformation; the Butter Chicken main is inspired by the famous Spatchcock Chicken scene, and highlights include “My First Day as a Woman” Anglo Indian Chicken Chop, “Poppet’s Paneer Pakeezah” and “Hellooo!” Gutti Vankaya.
Expect a “Run-By Fruiting” and a grand finale involving liquid nitrogen, in a cheeky nod to the famous kitchen fire scene.
Colonel Saab owner Roop Partap Choudhary says: “We’re thrilled to partner with Mrs Doubtfire on this exciting, theatrical menu experience.
“The film and the Chachi 420 Bollywood remake are huge movies in India and the UK and we enjoyed transforming the story from stage to plate with our multi-sensory Mrs Doubtfire dining experience.”
The West End musical just celebrated its first anniversary, after wowing critics with the hit adaptation of the Robin Williams classic. It tells the story of out-of-work actor, Daniel, who loses custody of his children in a messy divorce, and creates the alter ego of Scottish nanny Euphegenia Doubtfire in a desperate bid to stay in their lives.
As his new character takes on a life of its own, Mrs Doubtfire teaches Daniel more than he bargained for about being a father.
The production features much-loved moments from the movie, plus new songs and dance numbers and has been branded “genuinely funny” by Time Out, “a complete joy” by The Telegraph and “wildly entertaining” by City AM.
Roop Partap Choudhary created his Holborn and Trafalgar Square Colonel Saab restaurants as a “love letter” to his family and India. And in the past year it has been named the UK’s Best Asian Restaurant at the Asian Curry Awards (the Oscars of the curry world), Best Restaurant in Feed the Lion awards and was awarded Harden’s Certificate of Achievement.
The restaurant at the grand, former Holborn Town Hall and the second restaurant on William IV Street are a homage to Choudhary’s travels across India with his mother, Mrs Binny Choudhary and father, Colonel Manbeer, who was given the honorific name ‘Colonel Saab’ – shared by the restaurants – while serving in the Indian Army.
The postings across India enabled them to experience the continent’s rich diversity of food from traditional local lunches in the tents of Rajasthan to banquets hosted by Indian nobility and Maharajas. Roop spent a year retracing his father’s footsteps across India, to curate contemporary twists on dishes passed down through the generations of people they met.
Arts and culture are central to Colonel Saab, which famously features a dramatic treasure trove of eclectic Indian art and artefacts, and the Mrs Doubtfire experience will offer a new and delicious way to celebrate their passion for culture and food.