From Friday 27 to Monday 30 January the Southbank Centre is hosting talks, music, performance and poetry on the theme of Death: A Festival for the Living. To celebrate, Helena Puolakka, head chef at Skylon, has created a “menu to die for”. The Artful Diner finds out what links the two…

What does butter-poached lobster salad with quinoa and maple syrup vinaigrette have in common with Tibetan sky burials? Well, not a lot really, but by creating a tasting menu rich with different flavours, Helena Puolakka is echoing a tradition, prevalent in many cultures, to celebrate the dead with a feast.

Día de los Muertos

In Mexico the Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, is an annual celebration of the dead – a time when families remember ancestors, whose spirits are believed to visit the Earth once a year. Food plays a central role in remembrance, as favourite recipes of the deceased are cooked and laid out as offerings to their souls.

In Mexico this involves recipes such as moles, tamales and bread known as pan de muerto. Of course, closer to home, a decent spread of food is central to a wake. As the Southbank festival highlights, in death there is plenty worth celebrating and accordingly this is reflected in Helena’s menu [see below]. It includes a variety of flavours and textures, from saddle of Pyrenean lamb with Swiss chard gratin and griotte marmalade to warm smoked Var salmon.

“There is much about our common humanity that we acknowledge, share and celebrate, so why are we so reluctant to face up to the very thing that, in the end, unites us all?” asks Jude Kelly, artistic director, Southbank Centre. “In the way that a fitting memorial can be revelatory, or the presence of humour in a well-observed wake can lighten the load, we hope that our new festival can begin to allow some light onto a subject too often consigned to the shadows.”

Music and debate...

The festival opens on Friday 27 January with a free lunchtime performance by the Elysian Singers performing choral music written for memorials and funerals. Other performances will include John Tavener’s Song for Athene, famous for having been played at Princess Diana’s funeral, Barber’s Adagio for Strings and Saint-Saëns Danse Macabre.

An array of vibrant and colourful coffins from the famous Paa Joe workshop in Ghana and Crazy Coffins in Nottingham will be exhibited in the foyer of the Royal Festival Hall. Both light and shade are explored with events including a discussion on assisted dying hosted by Jon Snow through to exploration of dancing with the dead in Madagascar.

If all of that leaves you with a taste for life, Helena’s tasting menu will be available on Friday and Saturday evening (see details below).

Further information:

Find out more about Death: Southbank Centre’s Festival for the Living.

Helena's "menu to die for" is £59. Matching wines, selected by the head sommelier, are £47.

Selection of canapés

Butter-poached lobster salad with quinoa, maple syrup vinaigrette

Warm buckwheat blini with Aquitaine caviar and traditional trimmings

Port wine-poached foie gras, squash and beetroot mosaique

Warm smoked Var salmon, pickled cucumber, mousseline potato

Saddle of Pyrenean lamb, Swiss chard gratin, griotte marmalade

Vacherin Mont d’Or

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