LAB GROWN MEAT
(IT’S CLOSER THAN YOU THINK)
A little outside Tel Aviv, in the Israeli city of Ness Ziona, diners queue to gain entry to the city’s most talked about new restaurant. Once inside, they gather on black stools arranged around circular tables, their faces lit by the warm glow of hanging bulbs as they await small plates of celeriac root salad, smoked acorn squash tortellini and – the restaurant’s signature dish – sizzling chicken burgers. It’s a scene that could be plucked from any bustling Saturday night in one of the city’s top restaurants. But it’s the origin story of the meat it’s named after that sets The Chicken apart from its peers. Forget food miles and organic farming, the meat cradled within this glossy, dome-shaped bun, topped with avocado, shallots and baby beetroot leaves, began life in a lab.
The Chicken is the first restaurant in the world to serve cultured meat – aka cultivated meat. Grown from a small sample of cells, incubated and fed a nutrient-rich liquid until they take on the
