Danish Surrealism
We had to wait until the end of the health crisis before we could finally set foot on the threshold of the Alchimiste restaurant. Located on the outskirts of the Danish capital’s city center, chef Rasmus Munk’s gourmet lair has been the talk of the town ever since it opened. The 30-year-old chef, who at first glance appears reserved, is redefining the codes of haute gastronomy with his extraordinary culinary creations and extraordinary conceptual devices. L’alchimiste is certainly not a restaurant like any other, but rather a sensory experience that shocks, upsets, alarms and plunges diners into the depths of their personal entrenchments. Immerse yourself in the wild world, almost on the edge of reality, of a culinary genius who continues to believe in his convictions, listen to his heart and make his dreams come true.
Safe
Here we are at last! We had to be patient before finding ourselves in front of the imposing bronze door of the Alchimiste restaurant. What better way to intensify the pleasure than by prolonging this long-awaited moment? The moment is solemn. Questions abound. A slight apprehension grows. What can we expect? So much has been said about the tattooed troublemaker of Danish cuisine. We take the time to appreciate and observe before consuming and tasting. We’re in an industrial zone not far from the center of the Danish capital. The restaurant seems to be inside a hangar. It’s time…We press a button. No answer. We wait… the door opens as if it were a giant safe. We enter the gastronomic abyss…
We met the chef the day before this culinary adventure. Totally relaxed, the chef handles the interview with ease. Rasmus Munk grew up in a rural Danish environment that predestined him for a career as a car mechanic rather than behind the stove. “My parents were terrible cooks anyway,” he jokes. It’s hard to believe when you taste his omelette, which reaches such perfection; an ultra-airy interpretation, in osmosis with a Norwegian omelette or even a soufflé.
Humanist messages
His best friend is an apprentice chef, and he urges him to join the ranks. “It was cooking that set me on the right path and, above all, kept me out of trouble in my teens. I needed to escape from my everyday life. For the first time in my life, I took discipline seriously. It clicked immediately, almost like a fusion. Young Rasmus loves the disciplinary side of the profession and needs it to blossom. With his diploma in hand, he left his native Denmark for the banks of the Thames in the heart of London. It was the start of a culinary adventure…
Without knowing the reasons why, Rasmus Munk knows that, against all odds, he has to go into high-flying gastronomy. For the first time, he really learns the basics of the trade in a professional environment that is hostile to his approach. The change was unsettling, but he didn’t care and continued on his way. “I knew very quickly that I wanted to do something that nobody had done before. I don’t know if I’ve revolutionized the world of cooking, but in any case I’m doing my best to move it forward by passing on messages that are important to me. I stopped listening to what people think about me a long time ago”. Over dinner, all subjects are discussed. Politics, ecology, sociology… always with a critical eye on society and its practices, without passing moralizing or dogmatic judgement on the subjects discussed.
Production and assembly
Before creating l’Alchimiste, he opened his first restaurant in Copenhagen in 2015. With a counter seating around fifteen, the first version of l’Alchimiste was a kind of gastronomic test laboratory before taking the plunge. While imagining a place that symbolized his wildest dreams, he built his gourmet universe in total intimacy. Just like the place and its ambitions, the financial projections for such a project are pharaonic. Rasmus opened a few months before the arrival of the health crisis. Despite the confinements, nothing could stop the chef, and L’Alchimiste initially navigated the troubled waters of Covid. Two years later, a whole team of cooks – in charge of production during the day, with another team joining in the evening to continue the assembly – are showcasing the talent of this chef on the bangs of the current gastronomic scene.
Upheaval
What were we to expect on the other side of the imposing bronze door? I’d like to tell you all about it, but I’m not going to. Words wouldn’t be enough to express the countless feelings I’ve experienced in a single meal. I’d like to show you everything, but I won’t do that either. The images wouldn’t be representative enough of what I was able to experience over the course of one dinner. For once, I’ll share the minimum with you! Not because I don’t want to, but rather because I sincerely hope you’ll be able to sit down once with chef Rasmus Munk and enjoy an experience like none I’ve ever had before.
An evening at the Alchimiste restaurant in Copenhagen shook me to the core. This dinner was a reappraisal of the world of gastronomy, which I had previously believed to be frozen in a form of creative immobility. This dinner is much more than a simple gustatory experience; it’s more like a holistic and spiritual immersion, with 50 culinary creations, each more exceptional than the last. Each sequence pushed me to my gastronomic limits, and to my great surprise, the whole experience even led me to hitherto unparalleled spheres of gourmandise and generosity.
I’ve always been suspicious of the Danish school, but without really knowing why, I was bowled over by the cuisine of this extraordinary chef! Leaving aside preconceived ideas about fermentation and over-preservation, let’s discover a unique world and meet the man who is single-handedly revolutionizing gastronomy as it is generally understood.
