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Jul 13, 2023

The Cauldron Magical Pub in Philadelphia offers wizardry fantasy fun

As a kid, Matt Cortland spent half his free time exploring fantastical fictional

As a kid, Matt Cortland spent half his free time exploring fantastical fictional worlds found in books, the other half at a local South Jersey laboratory supply store spending his allowance on tools to learn about things like magnetism.

The London-based Marlton native and Rutgers graduate combined his childhood hobbies to bring magic to life at his newly opened pub in Philadelphia.

The Cauldron Magical Pub is the new fantasy-themed bar and restaurant in the two-story building at 1305 Locust St. It opened in May as the second U.S. location and headquarters for a franchise operation of Cortland's concept. The first is in New York City.

Much like Horace Slughorn's potions course at Hogwarts, there are wizard robes and hats and, of course, wands for casting spells throughout a cocktails "course.''

As you enter the bar, you and your party will be handed a robe, hat and functional wand, then taken to a table where a potions master awaits to guide you through the experience.

First up, Spell Casting 101.

You and your guests are led to a wall with a trio of mystical unicorn heads. Cocktails selected pour from the unicorns' mouths with a flick of the wand, which triggers a sensor.

That's drink one.

"Everyone has a welcome drink and everyone's happy," Cortland said.

Back at the workstation, which has a locked cabinet on the table only opened with your wand, guests get to brew two more drinks.

The cocktail class is an "interplay of the wand technology with the science of the drinks," Cortland explained.

The first brew is a color-changing drink. Cast an illumination spell — think Lumos! in Harry Potter — that lights your drink so you can see it change from blue to pink.

For drink two, a cauldron with a lot of smoke is involved. The drink is called Lost Time. Little vials, jam jars shaped like owls and fun glassware are offered for your concoction.

The potions class is a ticketed experience starting at $40 that includes a welcome mixed cocktail or mocktail, two molecular cocktails/mocktails to brew and an hour and 45-minute interactive experience.

There is a range of other drinks like smoked cocktails or a "bubbling shot of death" and food items that can be purchased as add-ons.

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As a full-service bar and restaurant, The Cauldron also has a menu for walk-ins with "fantastical molecular cocktails," Cortland shared, like Ode to Mullica (a bourbon and maple cocktail offered in a smoking jar) and fantasy-inspired food.

Guests can order Magical Fish and Chips served smoking and bubbling or Cauliflower Cheese, cauliflower set on fire and extinguished with English cheddar.

"The whole thing with us is interactivity and fun," Cortland said.

Cortland and his partner David Duckworth opened the first venue in London, England, in early 2018. The two had a low budget at the time and built the concept with recycled wooden pallets and by hand soldering everything with a team of interns.

They later expanded — with locations in New York City in 2018; Dublin, Ireland and Edinburgh, Scotland in 2019; a second space in London in 2021 called the Wizard Exploratorium, and the latest in Philadelphia.

The mission is to "make magic real with science, technology and design," Cortland explained.

But much of the technology needed to make that magic doesn't exist, so Cortland and Duckworth made their own "magicineering" studio. It's called the Magic of Things — similar to the Internet of Things — with a team of software engineers, prop and set designers and experts in food and beverage retail.

The Magic of Things is a culmination of Cortland's interests and life experiences.

After graduating from Rutgers University, Cortland taught kids struggling with literacy and reading with Teach for America, helping them with the one genre that got him interested in reading years ago — fantasy.

"It's really accessible and fun and interesting, so I love fantasy," he said. "That's what got me in into reading originally as a kid."

Later, Cortland took his love for the mystical and his passion for learning to Taiwan by way of a Henry Luce Foundation fellowship. He worked for a technology company for a year. Later, on a George Mitchell fellowship, he ended up in Ireland for four years at the Dublin Institute of Technology where he earned a master's in creative digital media

It was in Dublin where the idea for The Cauldron began brewing.

"I started just wanting to make the things in my head real and the things in my head were trying to make magic real ... real magic wands that controlled things," he said.

Once a functional wand was engineered, his answer to how to share it with the world was a technologically powered interactive pub.

Cortland moved to London to launch the concept with no experience in the bar and restaurant industry. Fortunately, he met Duckworth, who's had years of work in molecular mixology and hospitality.

Together, they launched The Cauldron Co.

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The Cauldron Co. is not based on just one fantasy novel because "wands are in magic" throughout history, Cortland said — keeping him safe from intellectual property lawyers.

"I think what we try to do is go back to the source material of what all those authors also used as a point of reference," he explained.

"It's just a place for people to have fun and really just kind of step into childhood imagination."

Cortland credits his family and his childhood in South Jersey to his inspiration for the concept.

His parents and teachers were very supportive and encouraged him to pursue his interests, he said. "The quality and caliber of the teachers that I had — they were just really good. Having been a teacher, looking back, it's like, 'Wow, they did a really good job.' ''

The focus at the moment is on the Philly location but Cortland sees a franchise in South Jersey opening in the future.

"It would be relatively easy, I think, to open one in SJ," he said.

1305 Locust St., 732-538-7630; thecauldron.io/philly

Hira Qureshi covers food and drink for South Jersey at the Courier Post, Burlington County Times and Daily Journal. She can be reached at [email protected] or 856-287-8106. Help support local journalism with a digital subscription.