The Fable Tree

Heston Blumenthal and his team at The Fat Duck were preparing for the festive season with a special Christmas menu, named The Fable Tree. They were looking for a way to engage with their guests as part of the initial booking process, and start building the anticipation of dining at the award-winning restaurant. With eight weeks to deliver something magical, we got to work!

Built around the all important question, ‘what is Christmas without a tree?’, we crafted a digital experience that began with the planting of a Fable Tree seed. From there, guests were invited to answer a series of questions about their fondest Christmas memories, taking them deeper underground to the roots of the Fable Tree. These memories helped to create a sense of nostalgia and feed into the excitement of Christmas, and their upcoming restaurant booking.

The choices made during the experience helped the team at The Fat Duck build in seemingly serendipitous moments of joy and purposeful theatre. Rather than a forced conversation or a form, the experience allowed for data collection that felt both fitting and meaningful to the experience of dining at one of the best Michelin starred restaurants in the UK.

From the initial booking users would receive a link to the digital experience to confirm their booking and party. They would be led through the nostalgia-filled experience and then be presented with the ending of a sprouting Norwegian Fir tree — an image that was the first thing they saw as they entered The Fat Duck. Upon leaving the restaurant they were presented with their own tree to take home, plant and nurture for years to come. All this stemming from the very seed that they planted in the experience, months before.