First Airlines: Plane-themed restaurant offers VR 'in-flight' dining experience

Nervous flyers can experience an in-flight meal without setting foot on a plane

VR experiences have become popular at everything from restaurants to hotels (Getty)

If you thought plane food was one of the worst bits about flying, this restaurant in Japan might not be quite to your taste.

First Airlines restaurant in Tokyo is offering guests a unique “in-flight” Virtual Reality (VR) dining experience, with virtual tours of cities including Hawaii, Rome, Paris and New York.

Diners “check in” to the flight, sit in a comfortable first-class seat and enjoy a realistic pre-flight safety demonstration, before enjoying an array of dishes similar to those served on flights.

After “take-off”, guests are treated to a four-course meal themed around the cuisine of their VR destination. The New York experience, for example, includes chopped salad, Manhattan clam chowder, Angus beef steak with bacon and balsamic truffle sauce and cheese cake, while those “travelling” to Italy can enjoy dishes such as salmon carpaccio and tiramisu.

For authenticity, diners are served by former first-class cabin crew members, while the company uses Airbus 310 and 340 seats, which First Airlines says is the “finest seat” used on real first-class flights.

Guests can choose either first or business class seats, although the VR experience remains the same throughout the “plane”.

The restaurant sells tickets via an airline-style website, ranging in price from approximately 4,980 yen (£33) to 5,980 yen (£40), and also offers guests discounts at three local shops upon presenting their “boarding passes”.

“Virtual Reality has been grabbing technology headlines for a few years now, though it’s only recently matured into a viable discipline for businesses to reach customers in a way that no other medium can,” James Beveridge, MD and co-founder of Pebble Studios told The Independent.

“The ability of VR to awaken our senses in a world of click bait and mindless social scrolling is where its true value lies. This creates a lasting emotional connection which is increasingly difficult to achieve in today’s cluttered media landscape.

“VR experiences remove any unnecessary distraction, focusing our minds and taking us away from the real world. The result is mesmerising and even meditative.

“But the technology alone is simply not enough. The potential is only truly felt when the content itself is intelligently crafted and creatively inspired.”

VR travel experiences have grown in popularity over the last few years. Companies including Viator have launched a number of VR tours including a Colosseum and Ancient Rome tour, a Pompeii tour and a virtual reality tour of the Eiffel Tower.