New “Restaurant” Shows Possibilities of Lab-Grown Meat

If you thought the idea of creating meat by growing animal cells in a petri dish was bizarre, wait until you see what Dutch artist Koert van Mensvoort has cooked up at Bistro In Vitro. At this “fictitious restaurant,” you can order digital versions of meals that don’t actually exist in reality yet because they are made exclusively from cultured meat. But the Bistro’s offerings go well beyond merely mimicking boring burgers and chicken nuggets to the far reaches of van Mensvoort’s wild imagination—from Knitted Steak and Lab Sweetbread to Friendly Foie Gras and Celebrity Cubes—which is made from famous people’s stem cells. According the website, “Researchers believe that in vitro meat, produced from animal cells cultured in a bioreactor, could offer a sustainable and animal friendly alternative in the future.”