The Theatre of Eating: Inside Eeshaan Kashyap’s Immersive ‘Buffetscapes’

Most people see a buffet as a place to eat. Eeshaan Kashyap sees it as a stage. In his world, a strawberry dessert station might turn into a berry garden, a cocktail counter into a marble fountain, and a meal into an experience shaped by rocks, moss, textiles, light, and sound.

Over the past few years, the Delhi-based culinary designer and food stylist has built a creative practice around this idea, giving rise to what he calls the ‘buffetscape’.

The term sits somewhere between food styling, installation art, and event design, though Kashyap would probably argue it is none of those things exactly. Instead of treating the buffet as a functional necessity, Kashyap sees it as an experience in its own right—one that shapes how guests move through a space, interact with food, and remember an event long after it is over. “People remember one thing at the end of the day—how was the food?” he says. “Everything else comes after that.”

From The Kitchen To The Table

Long before designing elaborate food installations, Kashyap was training to become a chef. Having joined The Oberoi Centre of Learning and Development in 2006, he spent years immersed in luxury hospitality, working across hotel kitchens and learning the mechanics of service.

While others focused on recipes and techniques, Kashyap found himself equally fascinated by everything surrounding the meal—the plate it arrived on, the atmosphere around it, and the way people responded to it.

“There was always this love affair between food and design,” he says. “I never really saw them as separate disciplines.”

That interest grew steadily over the years. While working on restaurant concepts, bars, and hospitality projects, he began experimenting with tablescapes, cocktail experiences, and food-led installations. By 2016, those explorations had become more serious. The pandemic gave him the time and opportunity to push them further, eventually leading to the launch of Tablescape by Eeshaan in 2020.

Unlike architects or interior designers who later gravitated towards food, Kashyap arrived at design through the kitchen. The absence of formal design training, he believes, became an advantage rather than a limitation. “There is no fear of doing anything wrong,” he says. “There is no right or wrong when it comes to putting an idea out there.”

From tablescapes and product design, the work soon expanded into collaborations with hospitality groups, luxury brands, and cultural institutions. Over the years, Kashyap has worked with names such as Christian Louboutin, Ralph Lauren, and Thomas Goode, while also creating installations around events like the India Art Fair.

The Word Came Later

The word ‘buffetscape’ came later. The thinking behind it had been brewing for years. For decades, buffets largely remained functional spaces but rarely memorable. Kashyap saw an opportunity to rethink them.

Today, a typical project can involve chefs, production designers, lighting specialists, carpenters, florists, and fabricators—all working towards a single goal: making the food impossible to ignore.

“You should be looking around and wondering what is edible and what isn’t,” he says. That confusion is intentional. Kashyap likes creating moments where guests pause before reaching for a plate. Is that arrangement part of the decor or the menu? Is that installation meant to be admired or eaten? The uncertainty, he believes, encourages people to engage more deeply with the experience.

Some of his most memorable projects have leaned into this sense of surprise. For one event, he created towering totems from stacked utensils and drenched them in neon colour to introduce a tea-inspired menu. Elsewhere, he wrapped buffet structures in vintage textiles and old saris, treating fabric not as decoration but as a material for storytelling. The details change from project to project, but the aim remains the same.

What was once a niche proposition has increasingly become a category of its own. “People understand curation now,” says Kashyap. “They understand experiences. They want something unique.”

Building Worlds Around Food

During a lunch event at the Ambani wedding celebrations, Kashyap worked alongside Chef Ritu Dalmia to create what he describes as an immersive food environment, where the buffet became a destination rather than a stop between the various ceremonies.

No matter how elaborate the final installation, every project begins with the menu.” I work very closely with chefs because I need to understand the food before I can build the visual world around it,” he says.

Sometimes, however, the inspiration is more conceptual than culinary. An upcoming wedding revolves around the concept of ‘breaking symmetry’, with bamboo, paper, and stone standing in for different aspects of a relationship. Another project draws on the visual language of classical still-life paintings, using carpets and textiles to blur the line between dining table and artwork.

“Clients don’t want just a buffet anymore,” he says. “They want theatre. They want interaction. They want something people will remember.”

Behind The Scenes

For all their theatricality, buffetscapes are exercises in logistics. Every installation takes months of planning.

Kashyap’s team studies guest movement, service flow, visibility, kitchen access, and replenishment routes long before guests arrive. The scale alone can be staggering. The buffet installations his team creates often stretch to nearly 280 running feet and can take three to four months to develop. Functionality, he insists, is

non-negotiable. “The chef needs space. The service team needs space. Food has to be replenished efficiently,” he says. “A beautiful installation that doesn’t work is ultimately a failed installation.” This balancing act becomes even more challenging when projects take place in unusual locations. Over the years, Kashyap has worked across deserts, mountains, and destination venues, constantly negotiating between spectacle and practicality. No matter how ambitious the concept, the food still has to reach guests at the right temperature and at the right pace.

Looking Ahead

These days, Kashyap finds himself venturing into unfamiliar territory. An upcoming event, for instance, has him thinking about robots, conveyor belts, and AI-inspired dining experiences. To develop the concept, he has been meeting robotics specialists and technology studios—an unlikely task for someone who trained as a chef.

That willingness to venture into unfamiliar territory has become a defining feature of his practice. Whether he is experimenting with 3D-printed terracotta, reimagining textiles as part of a dining experience or developing entirely new formats for serving food, Kashyap approaches each project with the curiosity of a student rather than the certainty of an expert. “I don’t know anything about robots,” he admits cheerfully. “So I am spending time learning from people who do.” It is perhaps what keeps the work fresh. No two projects are alike, and no brief arrives with a ready-made solution. Each one demands a new way of thinking. For someone who began his career in professional kitchens, it is an unlikely path. Then again, there is very little about a buffetscape that is conventional.