A foodie has revealed what it’s like to dine at one of the world’s weirdest and most desirable restaurants – with ready-to-eat dishes that are definitely not for the faint hearted.
Michael Ligier, from San Francisco, managed to secure a place in the two-star Michelin restaurant Alchemist in Copenhagen, which starts at $717 for the 50-course tasting menu and $2,180 for the wine pairing.
In a YouTube video, he explains that “reservations sell out in three seconds” and there is reportedly a waiting list of 40,000 people, so it was “crazy” that he experienced it.
The food expert then offers viewers a glimpse of what happened at the acclaimed eatery, currently ranked No. 18 on the list of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants, with lamb brains, jellyfish and mock tongue among the zanier dishes.
Michael Ligier, from San Francisco, managed to get a seat at the two-star Michelin restaurant Alchemist in Copenhagen
A dish of lamb lungs served as a creamy pate between crispy layers
Michael gets to grips with a slippery lamb brain, which was presented in a prosthetic head and atop a foie gras-filled brioche
The first course of the dinner, called 1984, was made to look like an eyeball. It consisted of a danish potato with cream, some fresh green peas and a dollop of osetra caviar on top
Michael says the experience begins from the moment you walk into the former theater set building workshop.
He reveals, “These massive doors slowly opening into a black void.
“You’re told to go into a pitch-dark room and suddenly a violinist from the Copenhagen Philharmonic greets you with a Danish folk song… It was kind of scary, actually.”
After the unusual greeting, Michael was ushered into a lounge area with “these huge towers of wine and (an) interactive drink menu waiting for the meal to begin.”
When the serving team got the go-ahead, Michael ventured into the dining room with a dome featuring “gigantic images of that move and change” and atmospherically lit counter tables.
In his youtube videoMichael documents a selection of the weirder dishes he was served.
The first dish, or “impression” as the restaurant calls it, was a giant eye called 1984 and made with the idea that “Big Brother is watching you.”
The medley consisted of a danish potato topped with a cream made from lovage, some fresh green peas and a dollop of osetra caviar.
Some of the other wacky creations in the first series included “a daisy with a center that explodes in your mouth,” “a drink made with bunny ears,” cotton candy-textured dumplings, and artfully presented bowls of jellyfish.
The artfully presented jellyfish course to highlight sustainable ingredients
Some of the other wacky creations in the first series were dumplings with the texture of cotton candy
A dish that looks like a transparent crumpled package is called ‘Plastic Fantastic’ as a nod to plastic pollution
A cake was made from king crab tails, which are generally discarded
“My brain just can’t process it,” he said, trying to figure out the unusual texture and flavor combinations.
He recalled how he felt in the theatrical restaurant, saying, “When the dishes started coming, I kind of felt like having fun…I felt like a kid in a toy store with all these different dishes on it was playing.
“Everything … so precise and orderly.”
Michael emphasizes that many of the dishes were created by Chef Rasmus to highlight social issues and promote sustainable eating.
For example, a dish that looked like a discarded food wrapper was dubbed “Plastic Fantastic” in nod to plastic pollution, while a slice of cake was made from king crab tails, which are typically thrown away.
At another point, Michael had to “free a chicken leg” from a small cage to eat the meat lollipop attached to a scrawny foot, while images of battery-raised chickens were projected around the domed dining room.
After some innovative dishes, Michael said it was getting “creepy, really, really creepy.”
He continued, “I’m an adventurous eater, but even I was starting to have my limits tested by some of these dishes.
“There was a point when I heard the man next to me say that he wouldn’t eat this dish anyway.”
One of the more adventurous dishes at Alchemist came in the form of lamb lung pie.
After seven hours of eating and drinking, Michael was led to a pink room decked out with a disco ball
In the pink room, Michael had to put his finger in a cup and lick the gooey substance off
For dessert, the restaurant served an Andy Warhol-inspired banana, as a reference to a work of art that the chef has hanging in his kitchen
As the dish was placed in front of Michael, the waiter explained that lungs were “kind of a taboo part of the animal…even by offal standards.”
The lungs were served ‘like a pate or cream’, sandwiched between two crispy cracker-like layers. Despite initial reservations, Michael said the creation was actually “really, really delicious.”
The impression dubbed Food For Thought took it up a notch and featured a slice of lamb brain atop a deep-fried brioche ball filled with foie gras.
This chunk was then presented in one half of a realistic-looking prosthetic head.
Another course that surprised Michael was something that appeared to be a replica of the chef’s tongue having to be licked off a serving spoon.
“So I had to French kiss the chef,” he mused.
This section of the savory menu was “just insane,” Michael said, but he explained that it was what made Alchemist “so weird…beautiful and amazing.”
For dessert, the restaurant served an Andy Warhol-inspired banana, a reference to an artwork the chef has hanging in his kitchen, filled with banana sorbet.
The less appetizing dessert option offered at Alchemist was a pig’s blood ice cream cone shaped like a drop of blood.
In Michael’s video, the server explains that guests can donate blood with a QR code on the side of the plate, as blood donation is something “close to the heart of many Danes” due to a “quite serious national blood shortage.”
A less appetizing dessert offered at Alchemist is a pig’s blood ice cream in the shape of a drop of blood
To cap off the meal, the food pro was given a chocolate bar called Guilty Pleasure
To cap off the meal, the food pro was given a chocolate bar called Guilty Pleasure. Michael explained that the packaging contained “facts about child labor and the chocolate trade and how inhumane some chocolate can be.”
It came in biodegradable packaging and the chocolate was shaped like a coffin to “really emphasize that point… it’s powerful stuff.”
To top it off, leaving the restaurant turned out to be just as weird as entering.
After eating and dining for seven hours, Michael was led to a pink room decked out with a disco ball and instructed to wipe his hands on a napkin before throwing it on the floor.
A voice-over then told him to “carefully grasp” a cup in front of him with one hand and insert the index finger of his other hand into it.
The instructions continued: “Run your finger around the inside of the cup and then raise your finger.”
When told to lick a sticky substance off his finger, he was invited to dance by a woman wearing a wig. This, Michael said, was probably the strangest part of the dinner and he’s not sure how to describe what happened.
Despite the mix of unusual ingredients and the feeling of being outside his comfort zone, Michael described Alchemist as the best experience of his life and well worth the hefty price tag.
He concluded: ‘I used to think fine dining was stuffy, formal, it was a bunch of people in suits and ties and white tablecloths on the table, but what I’m realizing for me mostly is just seeing how far food can go, how it can be creative and innovative, and it can be more than just taste.
“It was the best meal I’ve ever had in my life…it’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”