Bistro in-vitro: The world's first lab meat restaurant?
Dutch scientist and artist Koert van Monsvoort last year launched a fictitious online restaurant and cookbook, the ‘Bistro in-vitro’ – a grand speculation into the future of cultured meats.
The project (described as an ‘interactive documentary’) takes viewers through 45 in-vitro menu options, with interviews and writings from chefs and designers, many of whom were involved in the creation Mark Post’s first lab burger.
Options include tasting extinct creatures - “Dodo Nuggets: Thanks to a dried specimen of a dodo in the Oxford University Natural History Museum it is
possible to taste what the first sailors ate when they visited Mauritius in 1598.”
Cannibalising the living or the dead is also on the menu as eating a piece of Einstein’s brain or Usain Bolt’s legs could also be possible. “Show you are a true fan by literally eating your favourite celebrity. These Celebrity Cubes are made from celebrities’ stem cells. Bistro In-Vitro serves the stars dipped in a whiskey glaze.”
Whilst this is an artistic project aimed at acquainting the public with the scope and possibilities of cultured meat, they are taking bookings for 2028 onwards – when they hope to open as a real restaurant.
Mensvoort has written extensively on how such technology can become an extension of reality and accepted as a part of what we perceive as ‘natural’.
