Hello Fresh: The Curious Table
Most children today have no idea where their food comes from. One in five believe fruit and vegetables magically appear in shops. Almost two in three children aged six to eight did not know kiwis grew on plants.
The Curious Table closes that gap through play and discovery.
The Curious Table is a free family installation created for HelloFresh at the Natural History Museum London, running through the school summer holidays.
Families choose a recipe, harvest physical interactive ingredients from a whimsical digital farm, and cook the dish together at an interactive kitchen table that tells the full story of their meal: where each ingredient came from, interesting facts about it, and the community of people who made it possible. They leave with the recipe card to cook it again at home.
The experience does not correct children with a lecture. It educates them through narrative. Built in six weeks, from concept to opening day.
Results - TO BE UPDATED
200K
New MET Visitors
35%
Increase
In Foot traffic
426k
Replicas Collected
1.4
Billion
Impressions
How was it made?
Building the farm
We decided to use an illustrated farm as it would appeal to a young audience without locking into a specific age range. It also gave us control over the narrative, highlighting exactly the details that mattered to drive interaction intuitively.
The farm animated film was layered to avoid repetitive loops and allow us to trigger different animations independently. A soundbed played throughout the room, setting the tone and adding a layer of immersion beneath the visuals.
Bridging digital and physical
Physical ingredients made the connection real. Holding a salmon fillet teaches where it comes from the moment you pull it from the fish, faster than any film could explain it.
Each prop was designed as a physical extension of the illustration — matching its style, colour, and character so the digital farm felt like it continued into the real world rather than stopping at the screen. We produced 12 different ingredients that not only looked and felt great, but also stood up to continuous use across five weeks. Each was fitted with an NFC tag, allowing us to recognise it later at the table.
Three of the ingredients had embedded sensors. Pulling one from its position sent a signal to a media server that triggered its respective animation in the wall. The gesture and the reaction were built to feel like a single event.
Cooking Time!
Once guests had collected their ingredients, they moved onto the kitchen, where three interactive tables continued the narrative.
Each table combined a screen driving the narrative, a stand for the recipe card, and a physical chopping board for the ingredients, all fitted with NFC readers to register each time a guest used the recipe card or a vegetable.
Placing the recipe card started the story, and placing each ingredient in sequence carried it forward. Guests were, in effect, cooking with what they had just harvested. The interactions stayed simple by design, keeping the focus on the story rather than on learning complex actions.
Six weeks from concept to delivery
The entire experience: concept, user journey, interaction design, content, animation, development, fabrication, testing, and technical build, was delivered in six weeks. Tight but never rushed.
Guests left with the recipe card they'd just cooked with, giving them something to make again at home. It was also where HelloFresh's role became concrete: not just the sponsor, but the brand behind the recipe and the invitation to cook.
Built around discovery and craft rather than spectacle, the experience sat naturally inside the museum.