Alchemist in Copenhagen has two Michelin stars, is ranked the fifth-best restaurant in the world on The World's 50 Best Restaurants list, and its chef Rasmus Munk was named the world's best chef in 2024 and 2025. From December the restaurant is halting regular service for five months. The reason isn't empty tables. Since the current location opened in 2019, bookings have been constantly full, and there are more than a million people on the waiting list.

Munk calls the break "Intermission". He borrows the idea from theatre, music and the arts, where research and rehearsals are part of the process before a work reaches its audience, and his model is his idol Ferran Adrià and the legendary elBulli. "Instead of constantly creating between two services, we've given ourselves five months to go deep," the chef explained. The reopening is planned for late April or early May 2027, with a completely new menu and a transformed experience.

The most interesting part isn't in the kitchen, it's on the payroll. "Intermission is not a holiday for the team," says Munk. Alchemist is keeping all its staff, more than a hundred people of over 37 nationalities, and all of them will keep receiving their regular wages even though the restaurant won't be operating as usual. The kitchen and front-of-house will work on new ideas, and the research and technology team will look for new ways to connect with guests. Munk believes the team's cultural diversity - their memories, techniques and flavours - can become a source of new dishes. How many restaurant owners where we live would pay their entire team for five months without issuing a single bill?

Research trips get their own place in the calendar: Munk plans to take the team to India and Japan. The restaurant will also bring in hospitality experts and people from fields that at first glance are far from the kitchen, while the so-called Alchemist Studio Team will work on the next generation of immersive and interactive technology, one of the core ingredients of the whole experience.

The change reaches the bill too. Today the menu costs around 750 euros without drinks, and the full experience with the different wine pairings can top 2,000 euros. After the reopening there will be a single price covering food, drinks, the aperitif and coffee or tea. The final figure hasn't been announced. Munk insists the goal isn't a price rise and points out that more than 70 per cent of guests already choose one of the seven drinks pairings with the menu. Early information about the new model mentions a mandatory drinks package of 3,000 Danish kroner, around 400 euros.

The doors won't be completely shut. During the break, behind-the-scenes tours are planned for students, young people interested in gastronomy and visitors, with a chance to taste flavours and drinks from previous seasons. Before that, November 2026 is the last month of Alchemist as we know it: the regular experience from 6 to 22 November, and from 25 to 29 November five gala dinners featuring some of the most famous dishes of the past and wines from the cellar, which holds more than 10,000 bottles.

Then come five months in which Munk and his team will ask themselves the question that sums up the whole experiment: what can fine dining become? The guests will taste the answer, in a dinner that lasts five to six hours and, according to those who have experienced it, passes in an instant.