식당밖으로 희미하게 보이는 물체는 산호초(Coral Blocks)들이다. 지금은 그런데로 잘 자라고 있는데, 식당을 설계한 Diver가 건강하게 자라지 못하고 있는 산호초를 멀리서 운반해와 다시 잘 자라도록 식당주변에 옮긴후 잘 보살피고 있어, 그주변에서 같이 어울리는 수많은 Fish들과 조화를 이우어,현재는 보는이들을 만족하게 한다고 설명이다.
이러한 식당에서 아내와 또는 앞으로 백년을 약속한 애인과 Eating out을 한다면...
이사진은 영화속의 한장면이 아니고, 실질적으로 바닷물속에 건축된 최신 식당으로, 여건이 맞는다면 누구 즐길수 있는 Public 식당이다. 하지만....
식당건물의 무게는 400톤으로 면적은 90 square meters. 리조트안에 있는 이 수족관같은 식당에 입장하기위해서는 머리를 숙이고 별도로 만들어진 나선형 계단이 세원진 좁은 통로를 통해서만 가능하다.
(CNN) — A warning to travelers heading below sea level to dine at luxury Maldives resort Hurawalhi's 5.8 Undersea Restaurant.
Your manners will likely be left up on the surface -- along with your shoes.
Cutting off one's companion mid-sentence is almost a certainty as you rush to point out one of the remarkable sea creatures swimming by, whether it's a reef shark or -- if you're lucky -- an octopus.
You might even find yourself giving your dining partner the silent treatment, mesmerized by the marine life that have made the stunning coral reef their home, from colorful parrot fish to moray eels and tiny mantis shrimp.
Largest of its kind
Opened in late 2016, 5.8 Undersea Restaurant is the world's largest all-glass underwater restaurant. Its name comes from the depth at which the restaurant sits -- 5.8 meters (about 19 feet) below the surface.
This huge construction weighs 400 metric tonnes and is 90 square meters.
To access the restaurant, diners walk across a pier towards the resort's over-water Aquarium Restaurant and head down a separate path to a long, winding staircase.
Each of 5.8's 10 tables offers views of the outside action.
The coral landscape, which stretches around the edges of the tubular structure, draws all shapes and sizes of sea life right up to the glass, leaving you with the inescapable feeling that you're the one on display and the sea life are actually looking in at you.
Does the food match the scenery?
It's tempting to feel sorry for the chef tasked with creating a menu that competes with these views.
But during a recent visit by CNN Travel, German chef Bjoern van den Oever's dishes had us not just excited for what was swimming by the glass, but what would next appear on our plates during the seven-course dinner.
"it's a lot of pressure," admits van den Oever, who works with a team of six chefs.
"You have to keep up with the surroundings, you don't want people getting bored by the food. So we have to always keep the food exciting as well."
As a result, he says lot of people have underestimated the restaurant and come in with low expectations -- only to be blown away.
"We wanted to create something special," he says.
"More like where people can sit and have a whole theater of things going on. Not only the fish outside, but also on the plate. So everything was very inspired by the surroundings: the coral life, the fish. And there's a lot of small details where you can look on the coral and you get the reflection on your plate."
Courses include a mix of unique meat and seafood-based dishes that emphasize the flavors of the local and imported ingredients. For example, there's the "Diver Scallops," served with apricot and almond vinaigrette.
"We take one product and we try to make the best out of it," says the chef.
"So you have scallop in two ways: You have the seared scallop and then the scallop tartare. Which shows, basically, both the raw and the cooked scallop so we have a better experience eating the dish."
All courses -- sent down via a tiny elevator near the kitchen above -- are paired with a selection of top wines, selected by the resort's sommelier.
In addition to the seven-course dinner menu there's a four- or seven-course lunch. Diners from other resorts are welcome to visit -- provided they don't have kids in tow. Hurawalhi is an adults-only resort.
According to van den Oever, some diners even fly in just for lunch.
"I became a chef because I wanted to make people happy," he says. "And with a restaurant like this, it's very easy."
If you build it, the fish will come
The natural reef landscape framing 5.8 was created by Hurawalhi dive instructor Paige Bennett.
"Basically what I did is [find] dislodged coral blocks, which were not healthy," she says. "Then, I transported them to the restaurant in hopes that it would start to regain these coral animals that live inside."
In the beginning, it was an experiment, so she started out with small pieces. Then, after a couple of weeks, the corals regrew.
http://www.cnn.com/travel/article/hurawalhi-5-8-underwater-restaurant/index.html
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