A new restaurant has opened where guests are served a mammoth 50-course tasting menu.
Found in Copenhagen, Alchemist is a 24,000 sq ft space which resides in the former home of the Danish Royal Theatre.
The restaurant is the brainchild of chef Rasmus Munk, who aligns himself with the latest strand of molecular gastronomy. The seemingly never-ending menu can take between three to five hours to complete, with restaurant guests able to dictate the speed and regularity of the dishes and take breaks from eating when necessary.
Alchemist doesn’t actually refer to the 50 different dishes as courses, instead labelling them as ‘impressions’. The so-called ‘impressions’ are rather avant garde in style, including the likes of a ‘blood diamond’ – a combination of kombucha, tomato and tabasco which is served on diamond-shaped ice cubes. Elsewhere on the menu, you’ll find a dish called ‘think outside the box’ (lamb’s brain in cherry sauce which is served in a transparent box) and ‘food for thought’: a dish which is made from ethically produced foie gras and arrives at the table inside a waxwork head.
Considering the sorts of dishes seen at Alchemist, it’s no surprise that the restaurant’s website asks diners to come in ‘with an open mind’. The website also states that the Alchemist ‘hopes you are ready to expand your idea of culinary art together with us’, while it warns diners that the 50-course menu probably isn’t for everyone, saying: ‘Alchemist might not be the right choice for an evening of business discussions or that nervous first date.’
Dinner at Alchemist will set you back 2,500 Danish Krone, which works out to be around £300, with additional wine pairings clocking in at a further £600. This isn’t the first iteration of Alchemist – Munk previously operated Alchemist as an intimate space with room for just 15 diners. He closed that version of Alchemist in 2017 to focus on this newer project, which he says cost £15 million to create (ten times more than the original budget).
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