Deoksu Palace brings imperial feasts back to life with AI exhibition
Hamnyeongjeon Hall at Deoksu Palace in Seoul, where an artificial intelligence-powered experience invites visitors to recreate traditional Korean Empire banquet dishes. Korea Time file
Visitors to Deoksu Palace will have a chance to become royal chefs, using artificial intelligence (AI) to create elaborate banquet dishes inspired by the dining traditions of the Korean Empire.
The Korea Heritage Service's Deoksu Palace Management Office, in collaboration with Davero Art, will open “Imperial Banquet of the Korean Empire, Prepared With AI” on Tuesday at Dondeokjeon Hall in central Seoul, with the exhibition running through March 28, 2027.
The interactive exhibition combines historical research into royal Western-style banquets with generative AI, allowing visitors to select ingredients and design their own imperial menus.
More than 60 artifacts and exhibition items related to royal banquets will also be displayed, including chandeliers decorated with the imperial plum blossom emblem, iron cooking utensils and matching tableware.
At the center of the experience are 30 ingredient models, including lamb, pheasant, salmon, truffles and caviar.
Visitors select ingredients and place them on a banquet table, where sensors identify their choices and generative AI produces images of the resulting dishes.
A large language model then creates menu names and accompanying culinary stories in Korean and English, while a digital kitchen displays the cooking process on a wall.
Projection mapping technology brings the finished dishes onto plates on a central table, completing an experience that takes about five minutes.
A 27-meter LED media wall will also show a recreated imperial banquet attended by Korean Empire officials and foreign diplomats in formal clothing, with costumes and decorations based on historical research.
The exhibition draws on a decade of research, reconstruction and exhibitions on the Korean Empire's royal banquet culture conducted by the heritage agency.
The project was developed through a public-private partnership with Davero Art, which was selected for the Korea Creative Content Agency's 2026 AI Content Production Support Program.
The Deoksu Palace Management Office said it hopes the exhibition will help visitors understand imperial banquet culture in an accessible and engaging way while offering a new experience of cultural heritage through digital technology.
This article was published with the assistance of generative AI and edited by The Korea Times.