the Big Bite32 October 2019_Esquirewe moved into a wine cellar that looked like something
out of The Matrix—8,000 bottles stacked three stories
high in glass towers with transparent glass floors. Then
we ambled into what resembled the interior of an ob-
servatory. Diners at Alchemist sit in darkness, at places
illuminated by tiny lamps, and gaze upon a domed vista
of a sky filled with stars. Munk told me that when the
dome was completed, he instructed the designer toThat must’ve been an expensive
redo, but, hey, erecting Alchemist
is said to have cost around $15 mil-
lion anyway, and a meal with wine
will set you back $600 (more if you
want a bottle of Pétrus). There are
performers to pay—not just serv-
ers but also trained thespians who
interact with you, à la mariachis
and mimes—and dishes that
force you to confront the issues
of the day, from climate change
to racism to avarice to pollution
to African water shortages to oce-
anic debris. There is a course that’s meant to mimic
a clot of plastic polluting the sea. There is also a lamb
brain, crimson from cherry juice, sliced by your side.
That’s meant to shock you with the reality of how much
food goes to waste. Munk calls that one “Think Out-
side the Box.”
Toto, we’re not in Noma anymore.
No need to slap a category on all of this. Munk has
already done so. He calls it “holistic cuisine.” “In the
same way as the ancient alchemists sought to fuse phi-
losophy, natural science, religion and the arts to cre-
ate a new understanding of the world order, the aim of
Holistic Cuisine is to redefine and broaden our under-standing of the concept
of dining,” the Alche-
mist site tells you. (The
ancient alchemists were
con men, but whatever.)
Look, I like to thinkrisk-takers and envelope-
pushers, and it would be
all too easy to mock an en-
terprise that appears to
edge perilously close toBe My Maybe, the one at
which Keanu Reeves, in
headphones, sheds tears
for the animal that has
died so that he can be fed.
But I’d be lying if I told
you that I want to eat at
Alchemist. I care deeply
about climate change,
yet I don’t necessarily goabout it even more. I go tofrom the awful news for
a few hours.
That’s an antiquated
perspective, though. Werestaurants that give pay-
ing customers the oppor-
tunity to experiment with
their own discomfort—
especially (ironically) at
the high end. In Hous-
ton, at Indigo, chef Jonny
Rhodes invites you to
contemplate, via tasting
menu, the odious history
of slavery, racial oppres-
sion, and mass incarcer-
ation; in Los Angeles, at
Vespertine, chef Jordan
Kahn ushers you into
a veritable spaceship,
where everything from gelatinous bites to repeated
loops of music is meant to foster as much disorienta-
tion as pleasure.
Does this represent the future of fine dining, or is it
a decline-of-the-Roman-Empire sign of its imminent
demise? I will only say that I spied a different vision of
restaurant bliss right down the street from Alchemist in
the once-abandoned Refshaleøen area of Copenhagen.
This was a place called La Banchina. It’s a shack over-
looking the harbor where you can order some ancho-
vies and a glass of wine. There’s swimming in the sum-
mer, a sauna in the winter.
You won’t think much about the sorry state of the
planet at La Banchina, but you will come away feel-
ing better. And that, my friends, is its own form
of alchemy.from Australian-born
Noma veteran Beau Clugston.Three Next-Wave
CopenhagenApollo Bar & Kantine:
Have a quiet, civilized
breakfast of soft-boiled eggs,
ham, and cheese
in a high-ceilinged museum
space tucked away
from the phone-toting
throngs of Nyhavn.Slurp: Ramen and gyoza
with a New
Nordic undercurrent,
courtesy of
another former Noma
soldier, chef
Philipp Inreiter.HAVE A THINK
This is lamb brain. The red coloration comes from
cherry juice. It’s sliced tableside at Alchemist.1
23456- Slurp 2. Apollo Bar & Kantine 3. IIuka 4. Alchemist 5. La Banchina 6. Noma
Copenhagen, Denmark
illustration: Mark Nerys