Food Ink in London, Britain, will be offering a nine-course menu that will be printed to order when it opens later this month.

    Food Ink says their mission is to explore the overlap between dining and technology-enhanced user experience. Food Ink states: “We believe that technology needs to serve a purpose and we are using it to add magic to the magic. We are putting at work most innovative technologies, like 3-D printing and augmented reality*, in order to elaborate the most exquisite interactive edible* experience. While there is no real magic here, our energy is dedicated to make every moment an enchantment.”

    Guests at Food Ink will experience food produced via live real-time 3-D printing.

    Details of the menu are strictly under wraps, however, Sasha Mather, Communications Director at Food Ink said: “Meat is tricky to print for sanitary* concerns and in terms of generating a genuine texture or mouth feel.”

    The 3-D printer used is made by “byFlow,” and can only process materials in the form of a paste.

    Mather said: “For now, the primary material has to take the form of a paste, because it is extruded through the byFlow cartridge needle in the same way a chef would, through a pastry bag. The robotic limb has greater precision than any human hand, however, and it also facilitates control of the molecular* gastronomy* of the printed food.”

    For those who cannot visit the restaurant themselves, the event is also being live-streamed to the world.

    As well as 3-D printing the food, the restaurant’s tables, chairs, lamps and even utensils have all been created using the technology. Guests will also be able to use virtual reality headsets, and listen to music composed by an artificial intelligence* computer.

    While Food Ink claims that theirs is the world’s first 3-D printing restaurant, a pop-up in London called “3D Printshow Kitchen” in May last year also served a menu of purely 3-D printed food.(SD-Agencies)