In this restaurant, the real menu is ghosts!

Imagine being ushered into a dilapidated eating house beside a graveyard by a man who whips off his head and then offers it on a plate. Or conjure up what you thought to be a portrait, with the subject stepping out of the frame to come and sit beside you.

This will be a reality with world-renowned magician Pradip Chandra Sorcar Junior working on a project where, in the backdrop of a restaurant in a run down building, the intricacies of his Indrajal (illusion) would be explained.

And for food, the real menu will be ghosts! "It is not the food, but magic that will be on offer. It will not be a restaurant in the true sense. There will be 30 minute shows in the evenings at the restaurant," said Sorcar.

As for the ghosts, Sorcar says "they will be friendly and love the company of humans. But then since they are ghosts, you have to be prepared to be spooked." The show will be preceded by a session where illusion will be explained to visitors, from both home and abroad.

The restaurant, with dim lights and a bumpy pathway leading up to it will be located in the suburbs of the metropolis, but its exact location will remain a secret. "The project may be ready by the end of 2008, but I cannot disclose the exact location," says the magician.

It will be set up in the compound of the proposed university of magic, where illusion would be taught to students in batches numbering between 30 and 40 by Sorcar.