Page 31 - Bloomberg Businessweek - November 19, 2018

Bloomberg Businessweek The Year Ahead 2019 Luxury

Dining 15 minutes from the city center. The three-story,
23,600-square-foot building is almost 25 times
larger than the original Alchemist. He got the
space with the help of a healthy investment from
Saxo Bank’s former co-chief executive officer,
Lars Seier Christensen, who’s also the main inves- ● Fish-eye nigiri will
▷ A meal at the Alchemist will tor in the nearby three-Michelin-star Geranium. highlight the problem of
include light shows and social The project’s budget is more than $1.5 million. waste in fish farming.
commentary There will be four kitchens, 30 cooks, and seven
dining spaces, all for one seating of just 44 diners
per night (that’s one chef for every one and a half
When experts forecast the future of food, diners). An evening there will cost about $650.
they emphasize “fast.” And “casual.” The “Holistic cuisine represents a crossroads ● The outside of the
omelet tastes like
modernist Danish chef Rasmus Munk rejects between the old and the new Alchemist,” Munk smoked bacon.
those trends. At his soon-to-open Copenhagen says. “Our ambitions are very high.” The experi-
restaurant, Alchemist 2.0, Munk will prepare ence will go something like this: Passing through
a dinner that can stretch as long as six hours. a 13-foot-high bronze door, guests will enter the
He’ll serve 50 courses, five times as many as “experience room.” The space’s programmable
most ambitious tasting menus, as he intro- LED panels will create a shifting landscape of
duces extrasensory experiences that play out cityscapes and snow and video works by art-
in a palatial dining room. ists. Munk says New York City will be the intro-
Munk has already proved he’s a provocative ductory theme; expect graffiti imagery and Big
chef. At the first Alchemist (yes, v. 2.0 is a second Apple-inspired snacks. Future collaborations
iteration), he surprised guests with a menu full of will feature surrealist sculptor Maria Rubinke,
politically and ethically charged dishes. A plate of whose sometimes violent works will match the ● One dessert will
king crab and potato buried under a pile of hay Alchemist’s transportive environment. be a rainbow sherbet 75
seahorse, tinted in
ash, served on an ashtray, was a delicious but Later in the meal, guests will find themselves honor of the creature’s
off-putting commentary on smoking. He served under a planetarium-style ceiling in the main same-sex partnership
habits.
raw lamb heart tartare laced with cherry juice dining room. Chefs will move like shadows in
alongside a leaflet encouraging diners to become a kitchen hidden behind a frosted glass wall;
organ donors. Over 14 months, 1,500 did. others will work in the middle of the dining
Since the original restaurant opened in 2015, room. The action is focused on 20 one-bite
Munk’s philosophy has evolved. He credits that courses tricked out with fragrance and other
to time spent in Japan and an increasing appre- extrasensory garnishes. ● In an homage to
ciation for art. Patrons will still find disruptive
The first theme in the dessert room will be
Dutch chocolatier
ILLUSTRATIONS COURTESY RASMUS MUNK cooking: holistic. He thinks of it as an experience rainbow popsicle of sour sorbet, will be shaped will serve a chocolate
Mikkel Friis Holm, Munk
the LGBTQ community. The Seahorse, a glittering
dishes, but Munk has another moniker for his
cake so light that it’s
80 percent air.
that stimulates the mind as well as the palate by
like the saltwater creature, which in nature dis-
plays same-sex partnership patterns. Munk plans
incorporating theater, art, and technology.
to explore such topics as gender, antibiotic use in
For Alchemist 2.0, scheduled to open in
farming, and food waste. His avant-garde cooking
January, he’s moved to a 25,000-square-foot ware-
house in the artsy Refshalevej neighborhood,
will also experiment with forms; an omelet will
come as an egg “sack” stuffed with cheese foam.
Fifty may seem like an unthinkable number of
courses—not to mention the time and movement
involved—but Munk isn’t alone in this approach.
At Barcelona’s Enigma last year, famed Spanish
chefs Ferran and Albert Adrià were among the
first to offer a 40-plus-course, multiroom tasting
menu. A meal there can last six hours. But the
Alchemist will be more theatrical, Munk says,
with guests encountering anything from smoke
to snow. “We want to create magic at Alchemist,”
he says. “Who hasn’t dreamt of pulling a rabbit
out of a hat during dinner?” <BW> �Kat Odell