Forget everything you think you know about dinner theater. Merchant Roots has completely redefined the term.

This August, the multisensory storytellers debuted a 10-course fall production on their new SoMa stage, an immersive space five times the size of their previous Fillmore Street home.

One of the most creative fine dining restaurants in town, Merchant Roots chooses a new theme four times a year then constructs, hand-selects, and hones virtually every aspect of the experience, from the curated playlist to the perfectly planned presentation of each dish. Some themes are playful, like School, which featured a “cafeteria lunch” and a reimagining of kid foods like ants on a log and alphabet soup. Others are master classes in an ingredient, ecosystem or era, like the mushroom foraging adventure Into the Forest.

In their original pocket-sized space, Merchant Roots had barely enough room to stretch its wings. Now, there’s virtually no limit to what chef-owner Ryan Shelton and his team can do. The SoMa restaurant has enough room for a workshop, where Shelton makes key elements of the serveware, and a wine room for playing out dinner’s opening scene. There’s space to project visual images in the dining room, a cozy heated courtyard for changing up the vibe, and a handful of other surprises in store (let’s just say, don’t miss the strawberry bubble room). A long, redwood bar at the heart of the restaurant will be fired up sometime in the near future.

Chef/owner Ryan Shelton in the Merchant Roots workshop.(Hardy Wilson)

Despite its upgrades though, the food and the story of how each dish came together is still at the core of Merchant Roots. They’re kicking off their new era with a “legacy” menu, a revamped tried and true past favorite: Color Theory, 10 monochromatic dishes that come in every color of the rainbow.

It’s one thing to only use ingredients of a single color in a dish. It’s something else entirely to make that dish exceptionally tasty. But Merchant Roots nails it every time.

We start with gold in Shelton’s workshop, getting a behind-the-scenes look at the tools and materials employed in the process of creating the meal’s artistic foundations. On a concrete plate imprinted with a fresh corn fossil painted gold, he skewers aebelskivers, puffy Dutch pancakes filled with buttered corn pudding and garnished with caramel popcorn. Then it's on to the wine room for a sparkling pink welcome, a carbonated, clarified watermelon gazpacho floating with goat cheese pearls.

Although there’s 4,500 square feet to play with here, the team has kept each of its two nightly seatings to just 12 people, creating a shared experience just as intimate as it was on Fillmore. After an amuse bouche in white (coconut poached sole, water kimchi radish, and smoked creme fraiche snow), the projectors light up. As they serve the green course, a baby pea salad with green goddess dressing bursting from an edible flower pot, the lights shift to emerald and grass grows from seed to stem on the wall above us.

Orange, blue, yellow, brown, and red follow, with different team members taking a turn sharing the background behind each dish in an improvised monologue that’s probably never exactly the same twice. Blue is the one we can’t stop talking about later that evening. Inspired by the ocean, the dish is made with blue corn hominy grits, Dungeness crab, and a dollop of hackleback caviar. Karl joins the party when they serve the plate as a billowing fog that pours over artfully placed mussel shells as if they were the headlands of the Golden Gate. Yellow, an homage to autumn leaves, is the one that delights us into laughing out loud.

Blue, a course made with blue corn hominy grits, Dungeness crab, hackleback caviar, and Karl the Fog.(Courtesy of Merchant Roots)

Wine pairings—mostly whites, some skin-contact funky, from small European producers—draw out and complement the flavors of each color. Between courses, we sip and watch the complex plating choreography in the open kitchen. Although this version of the meal is omnivorous, they set aside special evenings for diners of the vegetarian or gluten-free persuasion.

Both dessert courses are dreamy: Violet is a cone of blueberry bleu cheesecake with Port glaze and a crumb made from kalamata olives; Black a sphere of chocolate mouse cake with black forest–style cherries tucked inside. As we dig into the latter, the screens around us turn to swirling images of deepest space, a black hole at their center.

When the meal ends, the guests all erupt into a round of applause fit for a Broadway show—and that’s only fitting. Merchant Roots isn’t your mother’s small-town dinner theater, it's a daringly delicious immersive experience that feeds not just your tastebuds, but every one of your five senses.

// Merchant Roots is open Wednesday through Saturday and every other Sunday and Tuesday, with two seatings nightly at 5:30pm and 8pm; 1148 Mission St. (SoMa), exploretock.com.

Inside the theater-like digs of Merchant Roots' new SoMa space.(Hardy Wilson)