Bompas & Parr

Bompas & Parr leads in flavour-based experience design, culinary research, architectural installations and contemporary food design. The studio first came to prominence through its expertise in jellymaking, but has since gone on to create immersive flavour-based experiences ranging from an inhabitable cloud of gin and tonic, the world’s first multi-sensory fireworks and a Taste Experience for the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin, officially the best place to taste Guinness in the world.

The studio now consists of a team of creatives, producers, cooks, designers, specialised technicians and architects. With Sam Bompas and Harry Parr the team works to experiment, develop, produce and install projects, artworks, jellies and exhibitions, as well as archiving, communicating, and contextualising the work. Bompas & Parr also collaborates with specialist technicians, engineers, artists, scientists, musicians and many other disciplines to create wondrous events.

Bompas & Parr has written several books, the most recent in late 2014 which saw the studio republish Memoirs of a Stomach, a lost-and forgotten 18th century tome brought up to date with visuals from inside the digestive tract of food writer, pop-up chef and Sunday Times columnist Gizzi Erskine.

The studio works with some of the biggest companies and the world’s foremost cultural institutions to give people emotionally compelling or inspiring experiences.

Bompas & Parr has exhibited at Barbican Art Gallery, Garage Center for Contemporary Culture, Salon del Mobile, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Serpentine Gallery, Victoria & Albert Museum and the Wellcome Collection and collaborated with such firms as Diageo, Cargill, Selfridges, Disney, Louis Vuitton, Unilever, Vodafone, Kraft Foods, Heinz and Mercedes-Benz.

The myriad of projects range from:

• Creating London's first immersive ice cream experience, SCOOP: A Wonderful Ice Cream World at The British Museum of Food.

• Redesigning the Tasting Rooms at the Guinness Storehouse, host to 1.4 million visitors per year.

• Flooding a building with over four tonnes of punch that visitors boated across before having a drink.

• A 32” tall chocolate-centric climbing wall at Alton Towers, spec’d to the standard of a roller coaster.

• A green lake seven stories high on the roof of Selfridges Department Store with a boat up bar and waterfall.

... and a 2000 person Jelly Banquet.

The studio now includes a library, design space, test kitchen and workshop encompassing a team of experts leading in flavour based experience design, culinary research, architectural installations and contemporary food and drink communications.

The studio works with some of the world’s biggest companies (Diageo, Cargill, Mercedes-Benz) and the world’s foremost cultural institutions (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew; Garage Centre for Contemporary Culture, Moscow).

Bompas & Parr have written several cook books, published in London and New York, and recently published Tutti Frutti with Bompas & Parr and Friends through the studio's publishing house dedicated to printing niche food publications, both contemporary and historic.

Bompas & Parr is based in south London, but with a commitment to ideas and the studio’s ambitious approach Sam, Harry and the team are able to realise projects around the world.

Sam Bompas – Founding Partner

For Bompas & Parr, Sam is the salesman – charming and charismatic he tantalizes with promises of vast chocolate waterfalls, mountains of jelly and clouds of alcohol.

Sam spends a large portion of his time researching and developing new ideas and inexorably studying historical influences to inspire new and exciting projects and challenges for the team. In his library at the B&P studio, you can find a book or an article on almost any topic. A talented writer and a true raconteur, Sam is articulate and inventive.

In addition to his role as founding partner at Bompas & Parr, Sam does a large amount of public speaking, giving talks on topics as varied as Food on All Fours and My Favorite Chemicals complete with explosions, nudity and viciously boozy cocktails.

Harry Parr – Founding Partner

Trained in architecture, Harry’s talent for conceiving, designing and executing projects to a high level have undoubtedly made the companies projects what they are today.

Spending much of his time designing in the studio, working on drawings and concepts for exhibitions, events and even the occasional jelly mold, Harry makes designing and building the most epic of installations look easy.

As well as physical design Harry is a talented chef. He has has formulated a matrix for large-scale liquid chocolate and breathable gin and tonic, along side co-writing four successful recipe books with Sam.

TV:

CNN, 2012

Random Acts, 2011, (Channel 4)

Heston’s Victorian Feasts (Contributor), 2009, (Channel 4)

Books:

DIY Decadence with Bompas & Parr and Friends,  Bompas and Parr Editions, 2020

Cocktails with Bompas & Parr, Pavilion, 2019

Jelly with Bompas & Parr, Pavilion, 2010

Cocktails with Bompas & Parr, Pavilion, 2011

Feasting with Bompas & Parr, Pavilion, 2012

Tutti Frutti with Bompas & Parr and Friends, 2013

Print media:

The Gourmand, Sam Bompas, Regular contributor

Huffington Post, Regular contributor

Honours, Acolades & Achievements:

Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts

30 under 30, Zagat, 2012

Bompas & Parr Editions, Publishing House