Enjoy a feast for the eyes at Shanghai's IFC mall where 20 sets of delicious-looking miniature food will make your mouth water.

French artist Stephanie Kilgast created these tiny cakes, croissants, baguettes, cheeses, candies and other savory food at a scale of 1 to 12 of their original sizes. It is the first time they have been exhibited on the Chinese mainland.

Exquisitely placed on trays and plates on tiny tables and shelves, each set of miniature food has a specific theme. The happy birthday set, for example, has a frosted rainbow-colored birthday cake no bigger than a coin, cupcakes as small as grapes are displayed in a three-layer tray, and a few colorful heart-shape biscuits.

There is a table called, Pick a Donut, displaying 12 kinds of donuts as if they have different flavors. Other sets include Dark Chocolate Wedding, Teatime in the Woods and Marie-Antoinette's Wedding.

Visitors will crave a bite of the minuscule desserts. However, these inviting looking foods are not edible as they are made of polymer clay.

Using scalpels, art knives and toothpicks to mould, Kilgast takes up to three hours to create a piece, while a whole set, often takes her months to construct.

Detailing the artwork using simple acrylic paints, Kilgast uses a magnifying glass to help her with the intricate design. To make them vivid, she observes sharply the variation in color and shades of the sustenance.

Kilgast discovered her passion for miniatures in 2007, when she was looking for a new hobby to keep her occupied over the summer holidays at university. She realized creating miniatures took her back to a time when she was a little girl, making tiny food out of clay for her Barbie dolls.

The passion grew, and now she makes a living from making her tiny model food, and has written a book on how to make them.

Kilgast has now started to turn her food art into jewelry by adding clasps and hooks to them.

"Miniatures are usually appreciated because they make you think you can put the world in your pocket," she says.

wuni@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 08/18/2013 page15)