The Future of Food with Alchemist's Rasmus Munk

The newly crowned world's best chef talks biotech, the need to use waste streams and how to use gastronomy to change the world

- Joanna Lobo

It is called Space Bread. Feather light, thin and crisp like a golgappa and topped with Royal Belgian caviar. It looks crunchy but melts into nothingness on the tongue. This "bread" is made using a drop of aged soy sauce that's been aerated and then freeze-dried.

The Space Bread is one of my many courses at a stunning tasting of food at chef Rasmus Munk's Alchemist, a two-Michelin-Star restaurant in Copenhagen. It's not the only memorable dish on my 25-course tasting menu. Over the course of four hours, Munk and his team bring out dishes that aren't just delicious, but come with a message. The freeze-dried Nettle butterfly to indicate a potential protein source; the real-looking plastic in Plastic Fantastic, to talk about the large vortex of garbage patches in the ocean; and lamb's brain in Food for Thought, which takes a normally discarded part and turns it into the star of the show.

Munk is walking the talk when it comes to sustainability and how chefs can help protect the future of food. The main driver of this focus is his research space and laboratory Spora, started in November 2023—there, he and his team create products that could help Munk realise his dream of "making a change in the world".

Munk is more than just a chef. Through Junk Food, founded during the pandemic, his organisation provides meals to the homeless in Copenhagen, and Ønskejul is an annual charity event where families in need of support are treated to a Christmas meal. In November, he was the winner at Best Chef Awards 2024, which is awarded to chefs redefining modern gastronomy.

"The ambition was always to create a restaurant that is changing the world for food. We realised very fast that we need to go beyond the restaurant to do this better," says Munk, 33. It is why he started Spora.