Yeah, sure, open kitchens in restaurants are cool. You get to watch the incredibly stressful but efficient work of chefs as they prepare your food. Too bad they are going to feel like such a disappointment after you watch a tiny chef make your meal right in front of your eyes at your table.

Antoon Verbeeck and Filip Sterckx of Skullmapping studio have created Le Petit Chef, a projection-mapped cook that is willing to risk life and limb to prepare your meal. These animated performances are not only aesthetically amazing, but funny and clever.

If you aren’t familiar with projection mapping it “uses everyday video projectors, but instead of projecting on a flat screen, light is mapped onto any surface, turning common objects of any 3D shape into interactive displays.” It can show you everything from a bioluminescent forest to digital makeup.

This is all sorts of awesome, and the possibilities are genuinely incredible. Imagine going out for a meal, ordering your dish, and then watching it virtually prepared for you in a fun, beautifully animated short right on your table before waiters bring you the real thing. That would truly be a dining experience.

If you are interested in this for your own restaurant (or home like I am), Skullmapping says you can “purchase a license for this animation,” or they can even “develop a customized version of this project for your event, restaurant or hotel.” I’m furious this isn’t a standard feature at every restaurant already. What am I supposed to do instead, have a conversation? PASS.

Someday they’ll combine this technology with 3D-printing so the little chef really does make your meal…and then we’ll look up and realize we are living on the Enterprise.

What is your best idea for another meal Le Petit Chef could “prepare?” How about a salad made from the jungle? Tell us your idea in the comments below.

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HT: fastcodedesign
Image: Skullmapping/YouTube