Laila Gohar Shows Us How to Build a Shrimp and Langoustine Tower

All Clothing by Prada. Rings Laila’s own.

Laila Gohar isn’t exactly a chef, or a caterer, as much as she is a sculptor whose medium is not only edible, but delicious. The Egyptian-born former art student, who daydreams of making a chocolate fountain modeled after the obelisk in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, talked to us about crustaceans while trying on some fancy clothes.

———

Step 1:

Source the shrimp and langoustine, because you’re going to need a lot of it. If you don’t know what langoustine is, Google it.

Step 2:

Find a base for your tower. Old-school people use styrofoam, but it’s so fucking bad for the environment. I use metal mesh that I curl into a cone.

Step 3:

Cover your base with green foliage. You can use pine if you want it to look like a Christmas tree. You can also use kale. Cover the entire thing in green, because you don’t want your base to show.

All Clothing by Prada. Rings Laila’s own.

Step 4:

Place the shrimp and langoustine in separate pots of boiling water. Boil them for four minutes. You can also just buy shrimp cocktail at Whole Foods, or whatever.

Step 5:

Tie the tails of your shrimps and langoustine to your base using fishing wire. Fill the entire surface of your base this way in some kind of pattern, so you’re not just throwing shrimps on everywhere and then filling in the holes.

Step 6:

Once you’re done and out of shrimps and langoustines, fill in any blank areas with a bit of green to make sure it’s nice everywhere.

Step 7:

Serve with a homemade mayonnaise—but that’s a different how-to.

———

Set Design/Prop Stylist: Spencer Vrooman
Production: Helena Martel Seward
Photography Assistants: Robbie Corral, David Solorzano
Fashion Assistant: Raine Selene