The future of food according to Rasmus Munk
Summary
The newly crowned world’s best chef, Rasmus Munk, talks about biotech, the need to use waste streams, and how to use gastronomy to change the world
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 JunkFood, 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 of the global Best Chef Awards 2024, granted by an industry body that has been awarding chefs redefining modern gastronomy since 2015 .
“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.
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Spora’s headquarters is a few steps away from Alchemist, on the former industrial site of Refshalevej. It is where, last December, I met Munk and his team. It’s a vast space, typical of industrial buildings, with long windows looking out on to a garden, a research kitchen, and walls covered with details of their ongoing projects. Perhaps fittingly, the meeting room houses a leaf-cutter ant colony, which not only provides inspiration for their work but also makes a great conversation starter.
“Sometimes, there are innovations happening in the restaurant space that deserve to come out in society and reach millions of people instead of just being in the sphere of fine dining. I thought, if we start a centre or a space to facilitate some of this and bring artists, scientists and chefs together to look at some of the complicated problems from other perspectives…we can come up with solutions to create changes."
One of these solutions is a colostrum-based ice cream. The upcoming Mary Elizabeth Children’s Hospital in Copenhagen approached Munk with a query: how to make food more palatable for children who don’t have much of an appetite. Making ice cream wasn’t possible on such a large scale. Munk’s solution: use colostrum (high protein rich milk that is usually discarded) to make ice cream in a Pacojet (an appliance that micro-purees deep-frozen foods). It ensures the treats are healthier and using the Pacojets allows for larger, quicker volumes of ice cream.
The Space Bread was inspired by a research project together with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to design food for space travel—for instance, a bread that doesn’t need to be baked. Alternately, its other application is for children (and patients) who crave texture but cannot swallow solid foods.
The colostrum ice-cream and space bread are just some of the successful examples of the future of foods.
Spora’s focus areas are upcycling side streams (waste streams) from food and beverage industries, and creating alternative protein sources. The unifying base of all the experiments is a desire to offer an alternative that is delicious, and better than the existing one. “In the world of food technology, there is a need for new products that are driven by mouth feel, textures, temperatures and flavours. It needs to be better than the alternative, it needs to be sustainable, and scalable," he says. “We have to look at how to get more value out of things you normally just discard."
The tail flap of the Red King Crab was once wasted until Munk showed how it could become a high-value ingredient and put it on the Alchemist menu too; a collaboration with Norwegian fish wholesaler MS Donna. An ongoing collaboration with the University of Copenhagen is about HyCheese, a hybrid cheese that combines dairy and local plant proteins, and which can significantly reduce the carbon footprint of cheese.
Spora’s CEO, Mette Johnsen, walks me through the products. The first is a rapeseed cake. In the European Union, half of the locally grown plant proteins come from rapeseed plants. The discarded rapeseed cakes are usually used as cattle feed. Spora has treated this rapeseed to create an all-natural plant-based protein. “It is not trying to be a meat," says Johnsen. “It has a significant level of protein and fibre, thus making it an interesting side stream to turn into a future staple food. Quality wise, it is on par with soy protein." It comes to me as a rapeseed patty, with some fried onions. Texturally, it does resemble mince with a nutty savoury flavour.
I follow it up with a chocolate that is made using spent grains from a brewery. “The future of chocolate is not all rosy and we are unlikely to sustain this high demand for it. We decided to look into covering this demand in a different way," says Johnsen. The chocolate uses the spent grain in place of cacao and tastes just like chocolate.
“We already have these ingredients in circulation in our agricultural and food system, and in huge volumes. If we can tap into them and make high-value products that are delicious, we can really make our use of these resources more circular," says Johnsen.
Perhaps the most exciting ongoing project is with Space VIP, a space-travel company that wants to offer people “stratospheric dining" in a carbon-neutral space capsule; Munk will serve the first meal.
Munk, who considers himself an impatient man, knows that “change is not a next quarter thing". Spora hopes to get some products out in the market next year, and scale it up to Nordics. While Alchemist is bringing in all the attention, Munk appears extremely proud of his work at Spora. “For me, at least when I get to bed, I feel like my life makes more sense and it’s not just the craft and being a chef."
Joanna Lobo is a Goa-based journalist.
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