A Michelin-starred chef has space age plans to make dining out of this world
Rasmus Munk has teamed up with Florida-based startup Space Perspective to launch six diners at a time up to the outer atmospheric layer where they will be served a freshly made dinner by the 33-year-old Michelin-starred chef.
The missions will take place on Spaceship Neptune and are anticipated to start in late 2025. Munk’s menus will be based on the theme of space exploration, he says. “We want to tell stories through the food,” the chef explains. “We … want to talk and highlight some of the research that’s been done through the last 60 years.”
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“I think that will make an even stronger impact when you’re up there and looking down,” added Munk, who will join the six ticket buyers on the flight.
It may be called a “spaceship”, but Spaceship Neptune is more akin to a balloon which can carry a pressurised capsule to a height of around 30,480 metres above sea level. There, in the stratosphere – which is technically below the official definition of space’s boundary at 100km – diners will be able to dine while watching the sun rise over the Earth’s curvature.
There’s no such thing as a free dinner, and this is certainly the kind more likely to break the bank. A ticket on board will set you back $495,000 (€459,000). For that price tag, you get a six-hour journey up to the stratosphere and back, alongside a menu that far exceeds the rehydrated tubes of food astronauts have dined on for decades.
The first man in space, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, squeezed beef and liver paste into his mouth from an aluminium tube. To save on weight, astronauts aboard the International Space Station usually dine on dishes packaged in rehydratable containers, including soups and casseroles.
There have been some exceptions. In 2006, French master chef Alain Ducasse created special gourmet food that could be used for celebratory meals aboard the ISS. The tinned dishes included typical Mediterranean ingredients, such as olives, tomatoes, quails and swordfish.
Though Munk is mysterious about his menu, he says he’s planning to incorporate glow-in-dark stars made from aerogel and jellyfish protein.
“We are also working on an edible piece of space junk from a satellite,” he said. “And then, we want to talk about some of the things going on on the planet … from deforestation to temperatures rising and the garbage in our seas,” he added.
Munk’s Alchemist restaurant in Copenhagen, the Danish capital, has held two Michelin stars since 2020, and last year was ranked fifth best restaurant in the world.
Guests dine on a menu of 50 edible “impressions,” and the experience is accompanied by performers and installations, all set in the restaurant’s own architecture – a former theatre set building workshop in Copenhagen.
At the restaurant’s centre is a large planetarium dome, where guests eat surrounded by projections of Earth seen from space, oceans, forests, even a beating heart.
“I think fine dining, in general, is changing a lot," Munk says. "And I think you, as a guest, require more an experience in the future.”
