Alchemist Copenhagen will close five months every year
Rasmus Munk's two-star restaurant stops regular service from December for an annual Intermission, keeps about 100 staff on the payroll and makes a drinks package of DKK 3,000 compulsory.
Alchemist Copenhagen, Rasmus Munk's two-Michelin-star restaurant on Refshaleøen, will close for five months a year from December 2026, and will keep its roughly 100 employees on the payroll while the dining room is dark.
The restaurant calls the break Intermission. The first one runs from December until May 2027, according to TV 2 Kosmopol, and the pattern is meant to repeat every year. The time goes to research, study trips to India and Japan, new multisensory installations and training: the 28 people who work the dining room get masterclasses in leadership, psychology and service.
"I'm taking this step to create time and capacity for both myself and my team to continue challenging the boundaries of what a restaurant can be," Munk said.
Five months dark, 100 people paid: a model that only works with a million on the list.
How Alchemist Copenhagen pays for the pause
The Copenhagen Post reported that the decision comes despite an operating loss. Munk told the business daily Børsen that the model works because demand is not the problem: Alchemist has been full every day since it opened on Refshaleøen in 2019, and says more than one million people are on its waiting list.
Part of the bill moves to the guest. Free choice of drinks goes, replaced by a compulsory beverage package starting at DKK 3,000, around €400, which covers wine pairings, champagne and tea. It comes on top of a menu that Munk's concept, Holistic Cuisine, spreads over five acts and some 50 edible and non-edible impressions.
A last month before the curtain
Before the first Intermission, Alchemist is selling two runs in November: its regular menu from 6 to 22 November, then a Curtain Call from 25 to 29 November with extended menus and rare bottles from the cellar. Bookings opened on 21 September, for tables of two, four or six.
The restaurant is owned by Munk and the investor Lars Seier Christensen, co-founder of Saxo Bank. Few restaurants could copy the arrangement, and Munk has said as much to Danish media: it rests on a queue most dining rooms will never have.
Copenhagen will not go hungry in the meantime; the city's list of places to eat is long. But for five months a year, its most theatrical table will be a workshop.
