Building buys a pint … for Bompas & Parr

 Miracle berries are a strange fruit. They make sour food taste sweet. Bompas politely asks the waiter if, along with our cocktails, we could have a sliced lemon and a bowl of vinegar. Bizarrely, the lemon tastes like a sugary sweet, and the vinegar like warm syrup. I don’t like what this is doing to my insides. “We’re working with the Institute of Food Research to extract the active ingredient,” says Bompas, breezily. “Then we can throw taste parties.”

A taste party would involve guests sitting around and eating a meal of pickled vegetables and lemon pulp dipped in soy sauce. “In New York, they call it flavour-tripping,” says Parr.

A taste party would involve guests sitting around and eating a meal of pickled vegetables and lemon pulp dipped in soy sauce

It has to be said, our chosen venue would be more appropriate for a bad taste party. There are statues of Tutankhamun on the walls, one of the tables is inside a giant urn, and the greatest hits of Andrew Lloyd Webber are raging on the stereo. On the walls of the toilets is Victorian pornography, and the cocktails are called things like Rameses’ passion and bleeding Cleopatra. “I’ll have a multiple orgasm, please” says Charlotte. “Okay,” I slur. “And what will you have to drink?” I’ve had too much vinegar. It turns out Bompas & Parr have quite a few plans up their sleeves after the success of the London Festival of Architecture’s jelly banquet, including a Boris Johnson-themed restaurant, an experiment to change the structure of Ferrero Rocher so that they stack like in the TV adverts (“We’ve been watching a lot of YouTube videos,” says Parr), and a burger bar with happy meals designed by architect CZWG. Parr tells me they’re also working with celebrity chef Heston Blumenthal to improve the structural quality of jelly.

Recently, they also made a jelly room for the musician Mark Ronson’s birthday party. Parr brings out a test sample. “We made it with absinthe,” he explains. “It’s exceptionally strong.”

I’ll have a multiple orgasm, please’ says Charlotte. ‘Okay,’ I slur. ‘And what will you have to drink?

The evening descends yet further into surreal anarchy as Bompas explains the origin of our fezes. “They used to belong to my grandfather. He was a shriner.” A shriner, apparently, is the American version of a Freemason.

“Do they get treated specially, like the masons do?” asks Parr. “No, it’s just a hat,” says Bompas. But what a hat.

We discuss the possibilities of Bompas & Parr staging an event at the Conservative party conference. Bompas admits he campaigns for the Tories in Southwark. “There are only 20 Tories registered in the whole ward, so it’s not much of a campaign,” he admits. I have a feeling, as I take another mouthful of absinthe jelly, that Bompas & Parr are going to do well under a Conservative regime.