A restaurant that markets itself as offering ‘dining in the future’ is scheduled to open in September in Dubai, located just a short distance from the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world, Reuters reports
While human hands will still assemble the food, for now, all other aspects — including the menu, atmosphere and service — will be designed by a culinary broad-lingual model called Chef Aiman.
According to Ahmet Oytun Cakir, one of the founders of WOOHOO, Aiman, a combination of artificial intelligence (AI) and human, has been educated on decades of culinary science study, molecular composition data, and more than a thousand recipes from different cooking traditions around the world.
“While Aiman cannot taste, smell or interact with his dishes like a chef normally would, the model works by breaking cuisine down to its component parts such as texture, acidity and umami, and reassembling them into unusual flavour and ingredient combinations,” Aiman’s developers said.
These prototypes are further developed by chefs who experiment with the combinations proposed by the system, under the guidance of renowned Dubai-based chef Reif Othman.
According to Aiman’s developers, the intention is to enhance rather than replace the human element of cooking.
“Aiman is designed to develop recipes that reuse ingredients often discarded by restaurants, such as meat trimmings and fat,” the publication reads.
The founders of WOOHOO envision that, in the future, Aiman could be licensed to restaurants globally, helping to minimise ‘kitchen waste’ and increase environmental friendliness.
