Fifty meters up and two apart – Belgium’s dinner-in-the-sky relaunches

BRUSSELS- Belgians looking for a different culinary experience will once again be able to eat 50 metres above the ground as the dining-in-the-sky experience returns from COVID-19 lockdown with a new, socially distanced feel. Belgium- based Dinner in the Sky, which has been set up in some 60 countries since its 2006 launch, involves diners strapped into seats at a…

By Bart Biesemans

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Belgians looking for a different culinary experience will once again be able to eat 50 metres (164 feet) above the ground as the dining-in-the-sky experience returns from COVID-19 lockdown with a new, socially distanced feel.

Belgium-based Dinner in the Sky, which has been set up in some 60 countries since its 2006 launch, involves diners strapped into seats at a table suspended from a crane while well-known chefs cook and serve from the centre.

Their original platform sat 22 people together along the perimeter, but in the COVID-19 era, up to 32 diners will now reserve four-person private tables spaced apart from. The chefs and servers also have a little more space to roam.

“It means all the public are sitting in sort of a bubble,” said co-CEO Stefan Kerkhof at the crane base in the centre of the Belgian capital.

Dinner in the Sky offers three sittings – for lunch and two for dinner over the coming two weeks. The price is 295 euros ($350) per head or 150 euros for weekend afternoon cocktails.

($1 = 0.8430 euros)

(Reporting by Bart Biesemans, writing by Philip Blenkinsop; Editing by Mike Collett-White)