Course Correction: An Exclusive With Chef Rasmus Munk

IT’S PLASTIC. LIGHT, TRANSLUCENT and with a crinkly-looking texture.

It looks like plastic, except this isn’t polluting the ocean or infiltrating our food. This plastic can be eaten—it is an edible topping on the dish, Plastic Fantastic, made from cod skin bouillon.

It is one of 25 courses fed to me at Alchemist, the award-winning restaurant in Copenhagen. The creator of this plastic? A visionary, entrepreneur, and chef called Rasmus Munk.

A Danish chef with innovative and often controversial takes on food, Munk’s served cherry sauce in a blood bag to talk about blood donation, and his current menu features butterflies and bees, to showcase insects as a new protein source.

What we do at Alchemist is art, says Chef Rasmus Munk of the 50-course, six-hour experienceMATHIAS EIS

When not serving food in thought provoking ways at Alchemist, he experiments with waste streams to create possible protein sources. The food isn’t just sustainably sourced, organic and high quality; it invariably always tells a story. Alchemist has two Michelin stars, and consistently tops Best Restaurant lists. Last November, Munk won World’s Best Chef at the Best Chef Awards 2024. And, he has teamed up with a group to serve the first chef-driven meal in space.

Munk, who I’ve been fortunate to spend time with over two visits to Copenhagen— in 2019 and last year—is more than just a chef. “In the Alchemist context, I consider myself as more like an artist though I am still sensitive about saying it. What we do [at Alchemist] is art.”

A meal here is a unique experience— 50 courses spread six hours, accompanied by visuals (created in-house) and performance arts, in thoughtfully curated spaces, in an old warehouse. It doesn’t come cheap (starts at `60,000) or easy— tickets are booked months in advance.

My meal at Alchemist begins with Act I, a video installation that talks about the prevalence of technology and morphs my face onto those of legendary artists and characters in time. (Side note: I don’t make a good Mona Lisa.) Act II takes place in the luxurious lounge, decorated with a tower of wine bottles, and looking out onto a test kitchen. The chefs move with precision, using laboratory-like equipment to plate food. In the background is a ‘wall of taste’, ingredients they’ve worked with through the years, displayed in over 1,000 jars.

The lounge is where the first dishes come: a spherified daisy cocktail; a panipuri-like puffed gluten ball with smoke trapped within; freeze-dried farmed butterflies; cryo-fried mochi dough filled with stringy Gruyère cheese and Joselito ham and a solid cocktail featuring a cryo-frozen meringue of tonic water.

FOR ACT III, I MOVE INTO THE main dining area, under a dome that features an ever-changing series of visual accompaniments and specially curated music. The dishes served to me at Alchemist are all delicious, easy on the eye, technically proficient and always accompanied by a story. “Food can be the medium to start a conversation, or raise awareness about a cause,” says Munk.

‘Hunger’, another ‘controversial’ dish, visually has thinly cut sustainably sourced rabbit meat draped over a sculptured silver human chest. Intentionally, it is to remind people of undernourished children that are a result of the global inequalities in food distribution. ‘Plastic Fantastic’ talks about the fact that up to one-third of all cod caught in Northern Europe contains plastic—as the dish is served, the visual on the dome shows the proliferation of plastic underwater.

‘Food For Thought’ uses lamb’s brain, which is often discarded as waste in Denmark. Here, it is the star, served in a silicone mould head and with a freeze-dried lamb’s brain crisp. ‘Burnout Chicken’ has a chicken leg served in a cage to talk about cage-farmed chicken—to eat it, I am essentially ‘freeing’ the chicken.

The experience continues into two more rooms, interspersed with a quick tour of the kitchen space. My final bite is Amber, redwood ants in a honey and ginger candy accompanied by tea. “Alchemist has two parts: One is to understand how we can change the way we dine and experience food in a restaurant. The other one is making a change to the world,” says Munk.

Towards that end is Spora, his multidisciplinary research lab that wants to “get more value out of things you normally discard”. Spora uses waste streams to create new protein-rich products like a colostrum-based ice cream, Space Bread created as part of research (with MIT) to design food for space travel (freezedried 10-year-old soy sauce from Kyoto meringue). At the current Headquarters of Spora, I try two products that are under patents—a rape seed cake that can be used as an all-natural plant-based protein, and a chocolate that is made with spent grains.

Chocolate that is made with spent grains. “Chefs get a lot of attention today. I think you can use that attention to drive a change for the better,” he says. It’s not just about winning awards and topping lists for Munk. “When I go to bed every day, I want to feel like I’ve used my platform and craft for good.”

Change, but make it delicious too.

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