Film Synopsis

Eating Cultures is a documentary journey through three foreign national restaurants in London (Eritrean, Pakistani and Argentinian). Restaurant staff and customers share their experiences of working and eating in the restaurants as the filmmaker examines how “authentic” is understood and how culinary worlds are reconstructed and adapted for a multicultural London audience. Both the restaurant staff and the filmmaker engage in storytelling across cultural boundaries, yet they are charged with the accurate representation of an aspect of real life and bound by claims and expectations of authenticity. The film explores the intricacies of “mediating worlds” alongside the sensory-rich, somewhat touristic experience of “eating cultures”. Eating Cultures is part of a practice-based PhD research project for the Department of Media, Culture and Language at the University of Roehampton in London.