Immersive Dining Experience

Modulo Pi Media Servers Bring Ephemera’s Immersive Dining Experiences to Life

Through its concept of immersive dining, Ephemera Group offers a culinary experience that transports guests into spectacular worlds—from tropical jungles to ocean depths, passing through enchanted forests. To bring these multi-sensory environments to life, the group relies on an audiovisual system designed and integrated by Fosphor, with Modulo Pi’s Modulo Player media servers at its core. Video projection, sound, and lighting come together in a reliable, automated setup capable of running continuously to support the immersive experience for thousands of guests every day.

Founded in 2022 by three entrepreneurs in their twenties from Institut Lyfe (formerly Institut Paul Bocuse), Ephemera Group quickly established itself as a pioneer of immersive dining in France. Its concept: transporting guests into enchanting worlds through a blend of physical sets, video projection, sound, and lighting.

In just four years, Ephemera Group has opened no fewer than seven immersive restaurants in Paris and across France, each offering its own sensory universe—ranging from space exploration to journeys into a volcano, a tropical jungle, enchanted forests, or underwater worlds.

Every day, more than 5,000 people walk through the doors of these venues to enjoy a unique immersive journey centered around seasonal, homemade cuisine.

“We don’t just come to our restaurants to dine—we come to experience something,” explains Sixtine Coquereau, the group’s Marketing and Communications Director. “Each venue is designed as a world of its own, with its own set design, storytelling, and atmosphere. The idea is to take guests somewhere else for the duration of a meal.”

While the immersive experience relies on an overall scenography combining sets, lighting, and sound design, technology plays a key role in creating these environments.

“Our goal is for the technology to remain discreet, almost invisible to the guest, so that the magic unfolds naturally,” continues Sixtine Coquereau. “At the same time, it is central to our strategy. We pay close attention to innovations that can enhance the experience and allow our worlds to evolve over time.”

Immersive video projection acts as “a particularly powerful medium” within Ephemera’s restaurants. “We use it to evolve the décor and adapt the atmosphere depending on seasons, key moments, or specific events,” she adds. “It’s a very effective way to renew the experience and surprise returning guests.”

To deploy these immersive projection systems, Ephemera relies on the expertise of Fosphor. Each site features an installation made up of around 15 to 20 Epson video projectors, audio speakers, and lighting fixtures. At the heart of the system, Modulo Pi’s Modulo Player media server handles mapping, video playback, audio management, certain lighting elements, and overall show control across all sites.

The media server makes it possible to deliver content regardless of each venue’s specific layout and theme: mapping onto vaulted ceilings at the Paris-based Jungle Palace, projection onto a massive dome at the Lille venue Magmatic, or onto large semi-transparent fabrics at Under The Sea, the latest Ephemera restaurant opened in Montpellier.

Opened on February 13, 2026, this new 750 m² venue immerses visitors in a fantastical marine world inspired by ocean depths and abyssal creatures. The seventh location proved highly anticipated, with 10,000 reservations recorded within the first 72 hours.

At the heart of the space are marine sculptures created by film set designer Henriette Raz, along with translucent sails and layered transparency effects that create an enveloping environment, enhanced by video projection. In total, four Modulo Player media servers, each equipped with four outputs, power 14 Epson EB-695 projectors.

“For this restaurant, we developed video mapping directly onto the decorative sculptures,” explains Sixtine Coquereau.

“The projections follow the contours of the set to bring underwater elements to life—octopuses, turtles, and other marine creatures appear to move and evolve within the space. This transforms the physical décor into a living, dynamic environment.”

From a technical standpoint, Fosphor’s teams photographed the marine sculptures on site from the perspective of the projectors. Designers from Studio C14 were then able to imagine and create the media content used to map and animate these scenic elements.

In addition, large sculpted canvases shaped like waves help define the space and deepen the sense of immersion. In total, around 200 m² of surfaces are used, onto which “images are projected and distorted by the volumes, recreating effects of currents, aquatic light, and movement that enhance the feeling of being submerged beneath the ocean,” adds Sixtine Coquereau.

On a daily basis, teams manage the audiovisual system independently. Thanks to the show control features of the Modulo Player media server, a custom control panel has been created for each site, giving access to a range of commands and scenarios. Each restaurant is equipped with a touchscreen tablet hosting this interface, allowing for simple and intuitive control of the installation.

Nicolas Manichon, head of Fosphor, explains:

“The key is that everything works—lunch and dinner, every single day. Altogether, we have around a hundred projectors running daily with about thirty Modulo Player servers, and it all works very well.”

Beyond the daily dining experience, Ephemera’s restaurants also host numerous private events. Major corporations, international brands, and event agencies have all been won over, with more than 1,000 private bookings and group events already held across the seven immersive venues.

In this context, Modulo Player makes it easy to display presentations or videos via NDI. Certain areas can also be privatized independently, while the rest of the venue continues operating normally with its standard immersive projections.

Ephemera Group’s immersive success story continues, with new restaurant openings planned in the coming months.