Alchemist - Copenhagen
The main dining room, with the open kitchen shown on the far left
Rating: 15/20
Where: Copenhagen, Denmark
When: Dinner for 2 on 25 June 2024
Cost per Person: Tasting menu 4900 DKK, Wine pairing 1800-8500 DKK
Accolades: 2 Michelin Stars, #8 on Top 50 Restaurants list (2024)
Why: Dinner augmented by audio-visuals and performances; creative and unusual dishes
Spoiler alert! Part of the joy of visiting Alchemist is being surprised by what unfolds. The following discusses this experience in detail, so please proceed at your own risk.
Copenhagen's two-Michlin-starred Alchemist is a restaurant like no other. In fact, its goal is not just to provide a dinner, but an “experience”. Food is prepared using highly technical methods and unusual ingredients, and additionally, guests encounter performance art, audio and video installations and even a ball pit. There is probably no other place in the world that offers something comparable. For many people, that makes it the ultimate destination restaurant, worth the proverbial special journey, and possibly even deserving three stars. But others, including The New York Times' former food critic Pete Wells, consider the offered “experiences” to be mostly gimmicky. With such a wide range of opinions, we could be sure of only one thing before our visit: whatever Alchemist would be like, it wouldn't be boring.
A Dinner at Alchemist
Any visit to Alchemist starts with a taxi ride (or, if one wants to do as the local do, a bike ride) to Refshaleøen, an island once home to a large shipyard but now host to many food and drink establishments that attract a young, lively crowd. Our destination was a huge, unmarked building. Behind its window-less brick facade used to be a humongous hall that had been used for ship-construction. After the building's interior was renovated from the ground up, chef Rasmus Munk moved his restaurant here in 2019. He immediately gained two Michelin stars, and these days the restaurant is fully booked each and every night, with new reservations being snapped up within seconds after their release.
From the outside, the only visible feature of the restaurant's building is a foreboding-looking tall black door, vaguely reminiscent of Rodin's “The Gates of Hell”. Past the door is a slightly anti-climactic lobby where groups gather before embarking on their dining experiences. These begin every few minutes - reservations are staggered from 5pm to 7pm. Everyone eventually ends up in the same dining room for the majority of the night, but getting there is a journey that has to be undertaken one party at a time. Similar to Stockholm's Frantzén, our dinner was served in several different locations throughout our six-hour visit.
Our first stop was a barely lit room that featured a large mirrored wall in its center. The room’s outer walls were decorated with words and images that evoked questions of identity. As if that wasn't enough, a performer was in the room with us, asking questions like “who are you really?”. This was definitely an unusual beginning to our evening. Curiously, this theme of “identity” wasn't really picked up during the rest of our dinner. Maybe it was meant in the sense of “culinary identity”? Are you the kind of person unafraid of trying unusual or even disturbing looking dishes?
In any case, our first bite, or first “impression” as the restaurant likes to call it, was served in this identity room: a thin square-shaped cracker made from apples and sugar (no picture due to poor lighting). Sweet, and a bit sticky, it had a nice enough apple flavor 15.
Next, we were led to a lounge that had a cathedral-high ceiling - it was literally several stories above our heads. One side of the room was occupied by a glass-fronted wine cellar that was also a couple stories tall. On the wall next to it was a large window looking into the restaurant's “test kitchen”, which was used for culinary R&D in the mornings and for prepping the lounge snacks during dinner time.
Alchemist only serves a single tasting menu, but there were plenty of options for beverages. First, three levels of wine pairings, priced at 1800, 2800 and a princely 8500 DKK. In addition, there was a mixed pairing (combining cocktails, wines, beers and non-alcoholic drinks) for 2800 DKK and a non-alcoholic pairing for 1800 DKK. I went with the “cheapest” wine pairing, whose wines were chosen to be unusual, for example a red Sancerre. Not a single one of the non-dessert wines was particularly great, but they all went decently with the food, which was no mean feat, given the often unusual food items that had to be paired. On a return visit, I'd probably go for the mixed pairing instead, just to experience a bit more variety.
Since the pairings started only in the main dining room, we had some delicious non-alcoholic cocktails in the lounge - highly recommended.
Our first dish in the lounge was a “daisy” - really a pisco sour cocktail made with tangerines, and inspired by the chef's travels to Columbia. (This actually became the main recurring theme throughout the dinner: several dishes took inspirations from places that the chef had visited.) In any case, the frothy cocktail had not only a pretty presentation, it was also quite tasty 16.
A sphere made from puffed gluten was filled with smoke and topped with cream, a langoustine tartare, almond cream and some osetra caviar. We were told to eat this dish in two bites - the first bite cracked the sphere and released the smoke, which would then change the taste profile for the second bite. For me, there was a bit too much smoke - less would probably have done the job equally well. Still, the ephemeral smokiness was a nice addition to the lovely caviar and cream. Only nitpick: the gluten cracker didn't really taste of much 17.
For some reason, Alchemist likes to create dishes that challenge their diners, as in “we dare you to eat THIS!”. The next course was the first one of that kind. A beautiful butterfly (!) was served on a leaf-shaped cracker (whose contents I totally neglected to write down after staring speechlessly at the butterfly). Our server told us that this farmed (and thankfully expired) insect might one day become a cheap, renewable source of protein. It is left as an exercise for the reader to figure out how many butterflies one would need to replace a decent steak... For better of worse, the butterfly didn't really taste of much, but the cracker underneath it was pleasant enough. After the introduction, eating the dish was almost anti-climactic 14. (For the record, my dining partner, aka my sister, chose to eat only the cracker in this dish. She is probably a good proxy for how a non-foodie would react to Alchemist.)
Our next bite, an “Asian dumpling”, was much less controversial. While its filling, including nam jim sauce, bok choy and Thai basil, was fairly traditional, the dumpling’s “dough” was anything but. In fact, its shell consisted of cotton candy. The combination of sweet and savory worked better than I had expected. Overall though, I liked the filling, but the candy wrapper wasn't that exciting 16.
Alchemist's chef is currently designing a menu to be served on private space flights, and the next dish was possibly inspired by the blackness of space. Soy sauce had been aerated before being freeze dried, and the result was topped with osetra caviar. The ball of airy soy sauce melted in one's mouth, and as a result this dish tasted mostly of caviar, but with a very generous helping of salt 16.
This was followed by an omelet, that was (surprise!) mostly made out of eggs. The outside of the omelet consisted of an egg yolk membrane, while its inside contained an egg espuma, truffles, cheese and peppers. An almost invisibly thin layer of pancetta had been laid on top of the omelet. This was a great bite: eggy, cheesy, truffely and salty 18.
Inspired by Barcelona’s bikini sandwich, we next received a “sunburnt bikini”. A toasted mochi dough ball was filled with Gruyere cheese, Iberian ham, truffles and butter. The mochi was nicely crunchy and chewy at the same time, and its flavorful filling of cheese and ham was even better - yum 17.
The lounge menu had started with a cocktail (the daisy), and it also ended with one. This one was a vodka tonic, but in frozen form: inside a frozen vodka shell was a sea buckthorn marmalade. As anyone who has put a vodka bottle in a freezer would know, vodka is not prone to freezing easily. Consequently, this dish turned out to be very, very cold, almost to the point of being treacherous to eat. But it was worth it: the filling of acidic and sweet jam was delicious and made this a lovely bite 18.
That concluded our stay in the lounge, and we were ushered up a flight of stairs past the impressive wine cellar and into the main dining room. Well, the word “room” might be a bit of an understatement here - “space” would be more appropriate. The room's - sorry - space's ceiling was a gigantic half dome, onto which computer-generated movies were projected throughout our dinner, accompanied by ethereal music written by Alchemist's in-house composer. (Also available on Spotify, our enthusiastic server remarked.)
When we entered, the ceiling showed a shifting pattern of fish scales (see picture at top). It was soon replaced by an animation of jellyfish floating in water, which was in turn followed by about a dozen other scenes, some abstract, some more realistic. The projections didn't repeat, so only the guests with the earliest reservation times would see the full set. Luckily, coming late didn't diminish the experience too much. While some elements of the movies were related to the food being served, the vast majority was not, and in any case, the movies and food were not synchronized - which would have been an impossibility with seating times spread over two hours.
All diners were seated at one of two long continuous bar-height tables that snaked throughout the half-dome. The layout reminded me a bit of The Table in Hamburg, and was designed in such a way that one had ample privacy even though technically everyone sat at the same table. The servers approached from the other side of the table, bringing the food from the open kitchen that was visible at one end of the half-dome.
Our first course actually aligned perfectly with the jellyfish being projected onto the ceiling at the time. We were served raw cubes of jellyfish that had been cut a la minute (read: alive until a few moments ago). They came in water that had been seasoned with Asian herbs. The broth was lovely, full of herbal flavors and a touch of spice. By comparison, the jellyfish had (almost) no taste, they could easily have been replaced by flavorless Jell-O. But it was interesting to sample raw jellyfish as opposed to the dried kind so frequently seen in Chinese cuisine 17.
The following course was a signature dish of the restaurant, mostly due to its unique presentation - it looked like a giant eyeball. It turns out that the only edible part of this dish was the pupil, the center of the eye. Its exact contents vary seasonally, and on our visit it was a mixture of Danish fjord shrimps, peas, roasted pistachios, creme fraiche and caviar. A top layer of codfish eye gel gave it a glossy finish. This turned out to be a really nice dish, with tasty shrimp, some nuttiness from the pistachios, creaminess from the creme fraiche and saltiness from the caviar. The presentation might have looked a bit scary, but it was actually a pretty conventional dish 18.
Also very good was the chef's rendition of a “lobster roll”. Here, an aerated bread was shaped into a lobster claw and filled with lobster farce. It came with a dip made of smoked butter, horseradish and fermented tomatoes. The claw was served quite warm, and had a nice lobster flavor and a good crunch. The dip had a pronounced horseradish taste that went great with the seafood 18.
One of the movies projected onto the ceiling dealt with our pollution of the oceans, especially by plastic garbage. The next course took up that theme, albeit half an hour after the corresponding movie. A filet of local fish (plaice, to be precise) was combined with butter and pickles, and then breaded and fried. So far, so uncontroversial. But the fish was then wrapped in an oblaat made from algae and fish skin collagen, looking pretty much like a sheet of plastic. This “plastic” didn't really contribute any flavor and was used just for show. The fried fish was crunchy and tasty. My only nitpick would be that this dish was a bit straightforward: it tasted like fish sticks with tartar sauce 17.
Another signature dish followed, and just like the eyeball it was mainly known for its presentation, not for the food - the ingredients and preparation change frequently throughout the year. The utensil for delivering the dish was a spoon that was shaped like a human tongue. On and under the tongue was a spring salad made from white asparagus, daikon, wasabi, a sudachi fruit gel and panko bread crumbs. We were instructed to eat this dish via a French kiss, but using it like a weirdly misshapen spoon did the job as well. The reasoning behind this tongue spoon was that one's senses get heightened when a dish is presented in an unusual way. But it did little to elevate the actual salad: while fresh tasting and generally fine, it was not a particularly exciting dish 14.
Next, a dish straight out of the 2022 movie “The Menu”. Or maybe it was the other way around - Alchemist had this dish long before the movie came out. It consisted of some crackers and a sunchoke dip. The top of the dip showed a food-color-printed image of each diner. The printing had taken nine hours, which is quite an effort for a dish that sadly tasted of almost nothing 12.
The next entry in the “dare to eat THIS!” series was called “Food for Thought”, and featured lamb brains as its main ingredient. A cherry cloud sphere was filled with a cream of lamb brains and truffles, and the whole was topped with a chip made from a steamed and freeze-dried slice of lamb brains. Apparently, the chef loves lamb brains as an ingredient, and this was actually one of the tamer presentations served in the restaurant. This dish tasted mostly of cherry, with maybe a hint of truffle, and an odd, vaguely earthy aftertaste. Not my favorite, and I felt that this was a bit of a missed opportunity. If the chef really wanted diners to appreciate lamb brains, shouldn't he aim for an utterly delicious dish that made people put aside their reservations? This somewhat weird-tasting bite probably won't create any new converts to the cause. Or maybe its goal was simply to freak out squeamish diners. If so, it probably did its job 13.
Another slightly unsightly dish followed: a pressed chicken head. Here, the brains (and bones) had thankfully been removed, and the head then flattened and served as a crispy chip. On its underside was a cream of smoked Danish cheese, fish roe and chives. The cream was actually pretty tasty, but the chicken skin was quite fatty 14. My sister had given up on the “weird dishes”, and received the vegetarian version of this dish, which was made with a Gruyere cheese cracker instead of the chicken chip. It was much better, ironically 16.
“Airbread” had been made from sheets of potato starch (Disfrutar uses a similar technique). It was folded in many layers interleaved with browned butter, roasted yeast and onion juice, resulting in a croissant-like texture. After baking, it was topped table-side with a sauce made from baking yeast, butter, creme fraiche, egg yolks and aged Iberian ham. We were instructed to eat the bread in a single bite, which turned out to be a bit challenging - this was not a small dish. The airbread immediately dissolved, leaving just the impression of a little crunch and an abundance of butter and fat. The ham itself was not bad, but it probably didn't need quite as much fat to enhance its taste 16.
A wire-frame ribcage was draped with two very thin slices of cured rabbit meat that had been seasoned with a harissa paste and a seven-spice mix. We learned from our server that rabbit meat is one of the least resource-intensive meats to produce. But judging by this example, it doesn't necessarily have much innate flavor - this dish tasted mainly of the spice mix 14.
Next, another dish motivated by the chef's travels, this time from South America. A corn-shaped baked cake was made from fermented Danish corn and Peruvian white corn, cheese, habaneros and jalapeños. Given the last two ingredients, one might expect this dish to be spicy, but that wasn’t the case, there was at most a hint of pepper. The cheese in the middle was a welcome addition, because otherwise this would have been a pretty one-dimensional dish: a fried, mostly savory, corn bread, but with a denser and less crumbly texture than the US equivalent 14.
At this point in time, all diners were served a cocktail, no matter where they were in their dinner progression. We were instructed to put our cell phones away (a feat accomplished by approximately 50 of the 52 diners). The lights were then turned off, and the cocktails turned out to be bio-luminescent. They contained crystal jellyfish in addition to a honeydew melon base. The 52 cocktails glowing greenly in the dark were a pretty sight to behold. Their taste was almost secondary at this point, and that was a good thing, since it was not that exciting: the cocktail was just sweet and frothy. But for the idea alone, this deserves a 15.
The next dish also picked up on a theme seen in the overhead projections. It recalled the awful life of cage-raised chickens. A real chicken leg was placed inside a way-too-small cage. Following our server's rallying cry to “free the chicken!”, we removed the leg, and it turned out that the leg itself was not meant to be eaten. It just served as a holder for a chicken/shrimp meatball that had been seasoned with green curry spices before being covered with chicken skin and a tamarind glaze. The meat ball was fine, although quite salty and a big portion for this late in the meal. This also felt more rustic than the rest of the tasting menu 14.
The next dish contained a chicken foot as well, but this one was edible. Deboned and fried, all that remained of the foot was a crunchy shell. On the side was a tom yum broth that was bursting with flavors, almost to the point of overloading one's senses - a bit less might have worked, too. Or maybe it was meant to balance the taste-free chicken foot 14. The pescatarian version used a lotus root covered with fish caramel instead of the chicken foot, and was the better dish 15.
We were now slowly edging into dessert territory. First, we got a cantaloupe melon sorbet that sat on top of a Iberian ham extract. Apparently, this was a play on “prosciutto and melon”. The result didn't really taste of ham, though, it felt like a melon with a somewhat salty, umami aftertaste 14.
Recalling the looks of our first bite this evening was an ice cream sandwich made of squares. On top was a black currant chip, on the bottom a thin chocolate crisp, and inbetween some vanilla ice cream. Nice enough and vaguely reminiscent of a Black Forest cake 16.
The food-color printer got another workout for our next course, which was an edible (not-to-size) copy of Edvard Munch's “The Scream”. Beneath the print was a mousse made of saffron, citrus fruits (including tangerines) and Cointreau liquor. This mousse was quite nice, its acidity helped it feeling not too heavy, but the print added an odd aftertaste. Less was more here - I finished the mousse, but only half of The Scream 15.
Another (and still not last) entry in the “dare to eat THIS!” series: a frozen dessert in the shape of a blood drop. A QR code on the plate led to a webpage encouraging diners to sign up for blood donations in their home country. And, of course, the dessert itself was made from blood as well. Pigs blood sorbet and deer blood garum came with more traditional ingredients such as blueberry jam and juniper oil. Unfortunately, this was also my least favorite dish of the evening: fatty, with a weird umami aftertaste, and just not very enjoyable 11. The vegetarian version replaced the pigs blood with raspberries, and used chocolate instead of the deer blood garum. Tastier, but also much less complex than the original 13.
A coffin-shaped chocolate bar made from 70% Congolese chocolate was filled with peanut gianduja, a mango puree and salted caramel. The chocolate was decent, its liquid filling nicely fruity, and the crunch added by the gianduja was lovely. An enjoyable dish - unless one read the plastic wrapper. That wrapper reminded us that much of the world’s chocolate is produced using exploitative child labor with scarcely any independent oversight, and virtually all profits end up in the pockets of “evil” first-world conglomerates 15.
After this guilt-inducing bite, we were led to a room adjacent to the main dining room. With no indication about what to expect, except for “please don't drop your cell phone”, we were ushered into a ball pit full of white plastic balls. A performer joined us after the lights in the room had been turned off for a few seconds. Well, lying in ball pits can be fun, but maybe not after eating for five hours straight. We made our way out through the kitchen and into the last dining space, a lounge situated above the half dome that we had spent so much time looking at. Here, we were served our last four dessert bites.
First, a memory from the chef's childhood, an edible piece of “amber”. In reality, it was made from Tasmanian honey and ginger, with a solid outer shell and a sticky and chewy interior. The result tasted of honey, and very strongly of ginger, almost too much so. The final ingredient of this dish was an ant that was stuck in the “amber”. Provided one chewed well, the ant was thankfully barely noticeable. This was also the last dish that challenged the dining audience 14.
A white cube topped with a green powder was a frozen margarita made from tequila, mezcal and lime juice that was topped with mint-lime sugar and a flaky sea salt. The texture of the cube was interesting: a weird combination of solid and creamy - hard to describe. It had a pleasant flavor, though 15.
A caramelized milk and hazelnut ice cream was served with a hazelnut praline. Its edible wrapping paper was initially placed upside down. It's a neat trick to do that without having the ice cream leak out. Said hazelnut ice cream was lovely, as well 16.
The final bite of the night was a play on a Danish cake called “Grandfather's beard”. Here, the cake was mustache-shaped, and was served on a stick. It practically asked for taking selfies with a chocolate mustache. Inside the chocolate shell was some brown butter, blackberry jam and caramelized white chocolate. The dish was lighter than expected - always welcome for a chocolate dessert at the end of dinner 14.
Thoughts on the Food
Looking back at the more than 30 courses that we had throughout the night, I felt that they were a mixed bag. There were some excellent dishes, but the majority fell a bit flat for me, often not even reaching a one-star level. Many dishes seemed to be more interested in making a point of some kind rather than tasting good. This was particularly true for the courses that involved odd ingredients such as butterflies, brains or multiple kinds of blood. Shocking and getting a reaction out of the diner seemed to be more important than having them actually like a dish. One could argue that this is food that is meant to “make you think”. Maybe, but the causes that the restaurant wanted one to care about were all over the place: pollution, mistreatment of animals and people, unsustainable practices in food production, blood donations, ... I think that these are all worthy causes, but a bit more focus might have been more powerful than using this scattershot approach.
The following menu is an example of a more single-minded approach to addressing issues in the food industry. It is from a 2015 dinner that we had at the (sadly now closed) two-Michelin-starred restaurant “Sixteen” in Chicago.
The theme of the tasting menu fit well with Alchemist’s mission: unsustainable practices in food production. Many courses offered the choice between two dishes. One was a “traditional” dish, for example a beef steak, whereas the other one was a more “sustainable” alternative, for example eggplant with a bit of beef tongue, a part of the animal that not many American restaurants would serve. Each such pair of dishes had a story - what was bad about the main dish, and what could be done to address that problem. Also - quite importantly -, the replacement dish was at least as enjoyable as the traditional choice. This showed that it was possible to improve the environment without compromising on taste. By giving the diner literally a choice, it also gave them agency: you could actually take a (small) step towards a better future, this wasn't just an abstract discussion. I found this kind of messaging much more powerful than the name-dropping (issue-dropping?) seen at Alchemist. Implying that people should eat butterflies instead of steaks will probably achieve the opposite effect of what was intended - almost everyone is going to stick with the steak. I wish that the alternative looked more appetizing.
Thoughts on the “Experience”
Besides the food, Alchemist also innovates in the integration of food, audio-visuals and performance art. However, I'd argue that they are actually not very integrated at the moment. Let's start with the performance art: there were two instances of them, at the beginning and near the end, and they seemed extraneous to the dinner experience. I had expected the art to combine with the dining experience, and somehow elevate it. But it ended up feeling tacked on. The initial theme of “identity” was never picked up again during our dinner, and the ball pit also seemed disconnected from the rest of the evening. Then there were the audio-visuals, in particular the movies projected onto the main dining room’s ceiling. They were interesting enough, but had only a passing connection to the dishes being served. A handful of courses had elements that appeared in the movies, but generally they would be served long after that movie had been shown, and diners from the later seatings might not even have seen the corresponding movie at all. With this disconnect between movies and food, it felt more like a family dinner where the TV is running continuously in the background, distracting everyone from the food.
Menu: Ultraviolet, Shanghai - list of courses and AV accompaniments (December 2018)
Consider what could have been. In Shanghai's Ultraviolet, movies are also projected on the walls, and there are even scants and temperature changes. But these experiences are tightly integrated with the food - the two are always in sync, and the audio-visuals are timed to enhance the enjoyment of the food by adding ambiance and/or instilling certain feelings in the diners. It might not work all the time, but when it does, it is actually quite powerful. (The fact that Ultraviolet's food is less experimental helps a bit as well.) Alchemist has all the infrastructure for doing something similar, but unfortunately doesn't really try. To be fair, Ultraviolet has 10 seats to Alchemist's 52, so that probably limits what can be accomplished here, but it still feels like a wasted opportunity.
Overall: Alchemist served us a six-hour meal with over 30 courses. Even though there were some longish gaps between courses, we were never bored, and this was definitely a memorable and pretty unique experience. The service was also exemplary, with the approachable chef himself presenting at least half a dozen of the courses. On the downside, though, there were many dishes that fell flat enjoyment-wise, or whose main purpose seemed to be to shock, not delight. With its pervasive AV presentation that is equal parts fascinating and distracting, I felt that Alchemist might be trying to do too many things at the same time.
Clearly, being fully booked every single night while charging quite a lot of money means that Alchemist is doing something right. They probably have no financial incentive to change anything. But from an artistic perspective, I hope that they do - there is some powerful combination of great food, story telling and thought-provoking that no one has quiet nailed yet. And the seeds of it can be found in a dome in Copenhagen 15.
