The eating experience, though revelatory, is almost secondary at the world’s most controversial restaurant
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Copenhagen’s Alchemist, the world’s most discussed and controversial restaurant, serves a 50-course, seven-hour feast.
The restaurant cost US$15 million to build, 10 times its original budget. Within moments of opening in 2019, its waiting list was over 5,000. It is a multiple of that today. It was the most profound dining experience of our lives.
Now, “dining experience” is not the same as eating/gustatory experience which, although remarkable at Alchemist, even revelatory, was almost secondary. You are about to learn why. As you read, consider whether any North American restaurant bears any resemblance to what we are about to describe.
One arrives at a former factory building with no sign, just doors of hand-sculpted bronze that weigh more than two tons. One looks for a bell ringer or an external camera, anything to let someone — anyone — know you are there. Nothing.
After a few minutes, the motorized doors open to reveal a small, grey, curtained room with two staff charged with verifying your name and enquiring about allergies. They explain that we will be experiencing a multi-staged event and throughout the night will be escorted through five areas with defined themes. Pedestrian enough. But…
We are immediately escorted into a pitch-black room. Suddenly, a spotlight opens on an extravagantly made-up violinist from the Danish Philharmonic on a high podium. She dramatically plays a melancholic song for five minutes. The spotlight turns off. We are then taken down a black hall to the next lit environment, seated beside the “test” kitchen.
Alchemist has four kitchens and 45 kitchen staff with far more wait staff yet, for its mere 45 patrons. Recipe experimentation is conducted by a team of four who work in this separate research kitchen, headed by a PhD from MIT.
The amuse-bouches include (again, what dining experience, anywhere, resembles this?):
Greed: Throughout the dinner, there are many statements of moral philosophy entwined with associated food presentations. This one is a cryofraction (-80C), which one eats with a spoon, made of woodruff.
Smokey Ball: A hollow shell, like a pani puri shell of Indian cuisine, filled with cream of oysters and cabbage topped with caviar.
The Perfect Omelette: A gelatinous egg yolk membrane topped with lardo, black pepper and black truffles. There is Comté cheese in the mix — an extremely rich yolk experienced with a creamy interior omelette texture.
We are barely starting but already transformed.
Sunburned Bikini: A bikini toast sandwich filled with Joselito vintage 2015, Spanish black ham, rice dough “mochi” and Gruyère cheese.
After our “snacks,” we are escorted through another pitch-black corridor to a giant planetarium-like room, around which are table counters with diners. Each dining location is illuminated by a very narrow, upside-down J-tube with an intense 1.5mm-diameter LED at the tip. Dramatic scenes, throughout the meal, move overhead and to the sides, projected onto a vast, high-vaulted dome.
The dishes continue, such as:
The Eye: Inspired by the George Orwell novel, 1984. We only scoop out the centre of the pupil, filled with layers of puréed Danish corn, lobster with a pickle chanterelle called “fish eyes,” and caviar.
Plastic Fantastic: This dish represents ocean contamination. Plated on a plastic-encased collage of various kinds of ocean debris collected from the local sea, the food aspect is made of the lower jaw bone of cod, cod bone marrow, Comté cheese and collagen, all cooked in a josper.
King Crab: Tail and roe, fished off the coast of Norway. We are told that this is a major predator that eats almost everything on the sea floor. Females are purposely fished to control the population.
Here, bread is brushed with shrimp paste. The farce in the middle is a blend of Langoustine and scallop. The top is king crab tail. The accompanying sauce consists of butternut squash, orange kosho and smoked butter. To eat, we flip the shell and eat the contents.
Tongue’s Kiss: We are advised that this dish deals with the perception of food. A disconcertingly realistic silicone cast of a human tongue is coated with a combination of horseradish cream, lamb’s eye, brined and lightly smoked, mixed with dehydrated lamb’s blood powder and early autumn berries, all made crispy by combining with dough and lactose fermented mirabelle plums. These are to be licked and sucked off the “tongue.”
Initially, seeing this coated object gave its appearance an undeserved innocence. However, this experience made Josh extremely uncomfortable, feeling this large, non-consensual tongue penetrating deep in his mouth. It almost makes one gag!
Food for Thought: Sustainable foie gras pan fried in butter with layers of pan-fried onions and Madeira with frozen foie gras foam and aerated lion’s mane mushrooms. This is combined with “air bread,” sheets of fried potato starch with brown butter and onions, built up to five layers. This edible item is presented in a semblance of a portion of a human skull.
Cage-Free Chicken Leg: Tamarind, lemongrass, fjord shrimp, garlic, ginger and crispy-crumbled teriyaki chicken skin. One removes the claws/leg from the cage and licks and sucks the bone.
Antwich: Sheep milk mousse ice cream, sandwiched between layers of coagulated Formic acid derived from dried ants.
Andy Warhol: Dried banana juice and banana cream sorbet with cachaca liqueur, tonka beans and caramelized egg.
Blood donation: This dish is a statement about the lack of available human organs and blood for transplants. Ice cream seasoned with pig’s blood, blueberry purée and ganache seasoned with juniper.
Nearly sated, we are escorted from the planetarium room through another dark hall to a brilliantly lit, vermilion-resplendent room where a mannequin-like mime is stiffly posed. Suddenly, there is music. The mannequin begins a robotic dance and encourages/requires us to dance with her. The music stops. She freezes and we are escorted through another dark hall to the “lounge” where we are served small desserts, drinks and/or coffee.
Dishes there included:
Amber Stone: Tasmanian honey, beeswax and ginger with a token redwood ant.
Happy Ending: Seventy per cent chocolate with “brother heart” tropical fruit covered with gold leaf.
We are finally taken to a small dark room. Suddenly, the floor lights up. We realize we are in an elevator, looking down through a glass floor as a movie projects our descent with various other moving images visible below us.
After reaching ground level, we enter a room with steel butterflies on the walls and exit.
Next stop, paradise!
Howard Levitt is a prominent employment lawyer, judge on several Canadian and international restaurant review awards and member of the Chevaliers du Tastevin. He has written
restaurant reviews for this paper.
Dr. Josh Josephson, research optometrist, former owner of The Cookbook Store, former president of the International Wine and Food Society, Toronto, is a judge for several Canadian and
international restaurant surveys, member of the Chevaliers du Tastevin; Chaine des Rotisseurs.
We completed a 14-day trial
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