At Japan House humanity has arrived at the perfect future: food for ogling, not eating

There is a popular Japanese television show that features a segment called ‘Candy Or Not Candy?’. Contestants are presented with objects and must guess if they’re edible or not. Is that a dish sponge – or a steamed sponge cake? I might not consider afternoon tea to be art, but the confectionery artifice required to dupe contestants into mistaking the replica for reality is impressive – or at least entertaining.

The inverse – using inedible materials to create replicas of food – is also a Japanese art form, and the subject of Looks Delicious! at Kensington’s Japan House. The exhibition looks at the practice of making shokuhin sampuru, the display models you’ll see in restaurant windows all over Japan. In the early 20th century, wax sampuru – loaned from the English word ‘sample’ – emerged as a more cost-effective, visually pleasing alternative to putting actual, edible food on display.