A Michelin-starred chef is taking his exclusive menu to new heights – both in terms of what it costs and where it’s served. How much you would pay to dine on a fabulous 50-course tasting menu – on the edge of space?
Literally, ‘out of this world’
The ‘ultimate dining experience’ is the brainchild of dual-Michelin-starred Chef Rasmus Munk, proprietor of Alchemist, one of the world’s most exclusive white table-cloth eateries. It’s perennially in the World’s Top 50 Restaurants list, and is booked up years in advance.
So what does a Rasmus Monk do for an encore?
A space balloon
He’s staging regular feasts aboard a huge balloon designed to ride the stratosphere, carrying a luxurious Jules Verne-esque space capsule that can accommodate only 6 diners – plus a full crew of cooks and table attendants.
It’s a high-level (pun intended) collaboration between Monk and two space tourism companies: Space VIP and Space Perspective. Monk provides the food, and they supply the ride.
“In this experience, I want to highlight food as a common thread in our human existence, and it will be truly meaningful to serve it while gazing down at the Earth’s curvature,” Monk told Bloomberg.
The menu
The repast is billed as ‘a 50-course tasting menu’. According to a story in Food & Wine, “The meal will be served on Space Perspective’s Spaceship Neptune capsule, and will be limited to six guests. If you’re already trying to guess how much this will cost, it’s a lot: the meal and a six-hour journey on the Spaceship Neptune will be around $495,000 per person.”
F&W hastens to put that price in perspective: The average home in the US today sells for $417,000. And the cost to dine at the world’s most expensive restaurant – chef Paul Pairet’s 10-seat, three-Michelin star Ultraviolet in Shanghai – is $1,400 per person.
Nevertheless, Monk says the sub-space flight already has a 10,000-name waiting list.
My take
If you’ve ‘done it all’ before and are looking for one more ‘ultimate’ experience, this is for you. And I’m talking ab0out the top 10 percent of the ‘1 percent’. For the rest of us, it’s just ‘pie in the sky’ (again, pun intended) dreaming.
Those who have partaken of Monk’s tasting menu feast here on earth say it’s an amazing gastronomic experience. But at (US)$718.48 not including wine, I doubt anybody I know – much less will ever hobnob with – will be going for it…
~ Maggie J.