A wake-up call in fifty courses
On a crisp spring evening in Copenhagen, I walk toward a pair of giant bronze doors tucked away in the industrial area of Refshaleøen. What lies beyond them is anything but a traditional restaurant. Alchemist, rated with two Michelin stars and ranked number 5 on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list, is an experience. Not a white-tablecloth dinner or a classic multi-course meal, but a theatrical, sensory journey that completely turns my idea of gastronomy upside down.
Holistic Cuisine
Rasmus Munk is no ordinary chef. What he does feels more like a fusion of science, performance, and poetry. Every course is thoughtful, intentional, and perfected down to the smallest detail. His fascination with fermentation, wild plants, and nature is tangible. I taste the earth, the sea and the forest. But above all, I taste his conviction: that cooking is also a way to tell stories and wake people up. Alchemist is not about luxury, but about awareness.
From the moment I step inside, it feels like I’ve entered a parallel universe. A series of spaces guide me through the evening: from a balcony to a playful installation room, to the central dome hall – the Dome – where the ceiling transforms into a starry sky, an ocean, or a dreamscape.
Activism through food
Under Rasmus’s direction, I’m served a 50-course menu that can’t simply be described as food. It is art. It is activism, magic, and discomfort rolled into one. As I move from dish to dish, I’m not just being fed – I’m being challenged. Plastic pollution, child labor, food waste – heavy themes that suddenly become far more tangible when they’re literally served on your plate. A chocolate coffin, cod with edible plastic these are images that stay with you. Another great example is the Burnout Chicken: a chicken leg served inside a cage with the same floor space allocated to a broiler chicken in conventional farming. To eat it, you must first free it from the cage. The dish consists of a deboned chicken wing filled with a chicken soufflé, glazed with a lobster teriyaki sauce, and finished with burnt hay.
What lingers with me most is the rhythm of the evening. There’s no rushed service or pressured pacing. Everything is given the time it deserves. For five hours, I’m immersed in a carefully choreographed performance where silence is just as meaningful as the next explosion of flavor. At times, I’m asked to participate, to activate an element, to assemble something and even that doesn’t feel like a gimmick, but part of the larger narrative.
As I take my final sip and slowly return to reality, a feeling lingers, one that’s hard to describe. A mix of wonder, awe, and hunger, not for more food, but for more of this. More of these boundary-pushing, meaningful experiences that show what gastronomy can be. This wasn’t just dinner. It was a journey, a revelation. A wake-up call in fifty courses. And for a moment, I was part of it.
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By Marco Louter
Photo credits: Marco Louter and Alchemist