SHOWCASING THE WORLD’S FINEST PROPERTIES AND THE STORIES BEHIND THEM

Global Bites
Our regular gourmet forkful
by Kitty Finstad

Have a lick at this: Impression No. 26: The Tongue Kiss at Alchemist in Copenhagen (© Søren Gammelmark)

Share

Even with the world’s larder now seemingly at our fingertips, we’ve never been so removed from the sources of our daily diet. Here, Storied’s regular column considers the provocative influence of immersive dining experiences. Prepare to dive deep…

If the term ‘immersive dining’ sounds like slurping your soup in scuba gear, let us explain. Immersive dining is immensely theatrical, provocative, philosophical, even political. There’s a real sense in which diners who book an immersive dining experience – and experience it certainly is – do so purpose in order to be challenged and, if all goes well, to be shocked. 

That suits the agenda perfectly. Because the climate of the times has changed. Our conversations around the table have altered, from light-hearted matters at dinner parties in the 2000s to more urgent matters of the moment, in today’s fractious world.

Wait, isn’t dining out supposed to be a joyful social affair? It was, and still is for the most part for most of us on most occasions. But for at least two chefs dead set on delivering immersive experiences in their restaurants (if restaurant is the right word), the menu is merely a set of gambits in a bigger discussion seriously close to their hearts.  

Anyway, when was dining out ever really only about the food?

At Restaurant Iris (@restaurantiris.no), floating in the Hardangerfjord on Norway’s western coast since its launch in 2023, the experience starts with the feeling you get when successfully booking one of the two daily sittings on only 32 dates available between February and April. (© Sebastian Lamberg Torjusen)

That’s a pertinent question when hard data tells us that the experience economy is only getting stronger, especially in younger generations who value doing things over owning them. They’ll travel and spend for the right experience, for lasting memories, for the ultimate unforgettable (!) Insta post. 

Iris: eye of the beholder

Unsurprisingly for the region that gave birth to Noma, five times named Best Restaurant in the World by Restaurant magazine, two of the gourmet world’s most notable immersive dining experiences are drawing visitors to Scandinavia: Copenhagen’s Alchemist and Norway’s Iris. Both are making global headlines because they’re making food political. They’re seeking to challenge, change and deepen our relationship with food, its provenance and cultivation, its long-term viability. 

Why is Iris called Iris? Because this restaurant at the leading edge of sustainable fine dining is housed inside the Salmon Eye – “the world’s largest floating art installation” – a massive orb of stainless-steel ‘scales’ that winks at the sky. More than immersive, Iris is “expedition dining”. Fair description – it’s a bit of a mission to get to Norway’s Hardangerfjord (nearest international airport: Bergen). Depending on your departure point, expect a full roster of planes, trains, automobiles and ferries. And, for the journey’s final leg, an electric boat. Dress up, for the weather. 

So you’ve arrived. Now cocoon yourself for the next six hours within the Salmon Eye, whose principle and principal purpose is to engage and inform visitors about “the challenges and opportunities of the aquaculture industry.” Specifically, how the sea can provide more food for the world – in a sustainable way. 

Chef Anika Madsen says of her inspiration for the menu at Restaurant Iris: “If I discover an ingredient that will lead to a greener future, I am not afraid to push boundaries. But to convince people to love it, it needs to be truly delicious.” (Tobias Lamberg Torjusen  |  John Asle E Hansen)

The gastronomic part of the expedition is an 18-course tasting menu devised by Danish chef Anika Madsen. First up? A multisensory experience on the structure’s underwater level. Then up to the dining level with spectacular views of the fjords, the mountains, the sea – the source of the kitchen’s inspiration and what ends up on your plate. Essentially, diners are brought to the ingredients, not the other way around. 

But this is no ordinary fine-dining experience with a bit of multimedia seasoning dusted on top. There is a story and a message baked in to each dish and its presentation. Because Madsen’s deep commitment to sustainability isn’t just lip service. Her activist-led approach to gastronomy invites (demands?) diners to consider the ingredients on their plate and how they got there.

On the menu: certified carbon-neutral salmon, sea urchin (the invasive red variety that’s been razing Norway’s seabeds since the 1970s), local seaweed, foraged vegetables, herbs and emulsions, even insects. Adventurous. As any expedition should be. 

“This region offers some of the cleanest and most exciting seafood produce in the world,” says Anika Madsen of Norway’s western fjords. Salmon features heavily, as does the invasive red sea urchin. (Tobias Lamberg Torjusen)

Alchemist: raising all the stakes

Over in Copenhagen, where 15 restaurants with Michelin stars have no trouble filling covers in a city of just 1.4 million residents, the stakes are high. Thank Rene Redzepi of Noma and the many other practitioners of New Nordic cuisine for continuing to attract countless international destination diners and their Instagram accounts to the Danish capital. For a small city, Copenhagen is seriously foodie.

Alchemist is the venue that will immerse you. But to describe Head Chef Rasmus Munk’s vision as simply ‘experiential’ falls short. Yes, it’s theatrical, it stimulates all the senses, it presents ingredients and ambitious, intellectual ideas in a way that even the most experimental chefs at the top of their game find provocative. Ferran Adrià, former head chef at Spain’s now-closed El Bulli, told a Danish magazine that his visit to Alchemist had “tested the limits of both human creativity and stamina”.

Doors like this – 20 feet high and swathed in ornate, nature-inspired metalwork – demand to be opened. Inside Alchemist, a dome-like ceiling becomes the canvas for mesmerizing projections that hint at the experience to come. (© Claes Bech Poulsen)  

Put to one side what you may have heard or read about Alchemist. Yes it’s true, there’s the IV bag containing a blood and cherry sauce. The freeze-dried lamb brain. The bioluminescent… stuff that makes jellyfish glow, mixed into a drink. The chicken’s foot served in a cage. And 40-some other edible ‘Impressions’ as the dishes are called. Plus the Cirque du Soleil-ish performers behind the imposing door and the vast planetarium-like interiors ablaze with hypnotic projections. And finally the heritage of the location itself: a massive warehouse once used by the Royal Danish Theatre as a set-building workshop. Drama inhabits the bones of this place.  

Heading up to the pass: a mega-sized ocular orb apparently modeled on chef Rasmus Munk’s own piercing blue peepers. The edible pupil’s filling is topped with black caviar. (© Søren Gammelmark)

But it’s not all theater. It’s message. It’s meaning. It’s philosophy. It’s a call to action.  “I want people to eat – and then think,” says Munk. So don’t call this immersive dining. Call it holistic cuisine, where elements of art, science, technology (and yes, theater too) provoke the five senses and rev up the thinking. One dish entreats diners to scan a QR code that links to an organ donation website.  

To divulge any more would be to spoil what one diner, a British chef who took his whole brigade to Alchemist to absorb ideas, described as upending Shakespeare: “If music be the food of love, play on. Ok, that was in 1602. What Rasmus is doing is thinking on. About how we eat and how we live collide.” 

One of Rasmus Munk’s tamer dishes (left), Impression No. 7: The Perfect Omelette nevertheless uses ultrasound to infuse black pepper. The Butterfly (right), the tortoiseshell variety, is freeze-dried and served on a nettle leaf that isn’t really a nettle leaf. The intent? To make you consider insects as a sustainable protein. (© Søren Gammelmark)

  • Reporter: Kitty Finstad
  • Kitty Finstad is an award-winning editor and former Chair of the British Society of Magazine Editors. She is a travel contributor to The Times and The Telegraph, and is also co-editor of Storied.

Login to begin saving your favorite properties

[wpum_login_form psw_link="yes" register_link="yes"]

Are you a Forbes Global Properties member? Login here

Register

[wpum_register login_link="yes" psw_link="yes"]

Register

[wpum_register login_link="yes" psw_link="yes"]

Login to begin saving your favorite properties

[wpum_login_form psw_link="yes" register_link="yes"]

Are you a Forbes Global Properties member? Login here