A secret menu awaits guests at the Nobel Prize banquet in Stockholm

In a bustling kitchen inside Stockholm’s city hall, chefs are preparing a lavish dinner with a secret menu for scientists and royalty attending this week’s Nobel Prize banquet.

More than 40 chefs were assigned the task of preparing the three-course dinner at the annual banquet, which will include Nobel laureates and their families, members of the Swedish royal family, and a group of dignitaries from the country.

“We want to apply our method of cooking, put our touch, and show it at this dinner that will be attended by 1,300 people,” said Bei Lo, who together with Tommy Milimacki is responsible for preparing the first two dishes.

“We take something we know the flavor of and add some touches to it,” he added.

The two chefs run a two-Michelin-starred restaurant on the island of Djurgården in Stockholm.

The menu was drawn up at the end of September after “a lot of experimentation,” Milimacki said.

The top-secret menu will not be revealed until guests sit tomorrow, Wednesday, at 59 tables filling the so-called Blue Hall.

But the two chefs shared some information, including that the first dish will include ingredients from the forests of the Nordic countries, such as dried porcini mushrooms, while the dessert dish will consist of prunes and berries, and 400 bottles of drinks will be served with appetizers.

The dinner also has a family touch for the two chefs, as the tableware has been renewed for the first time since it was prepared more than thirty years ago with an oak knife developed with Lou’s brother.

It took a long time to make the 1,300 knives by hand from wood imported from southern Sweden.

“We needed reinforcements to meet the deadline,” Lu said. “My mother, sister and father came to help.”

Pastry chef Frieda Back, who is participating in the banquet’s food preparation for the second year and is preparing this year’s dessert, spoke of her childhood days spent in the forest with her grandparents.

She said that prunes are “a little forgotten… and require a little persistence and creativity in dealing with them.”

Separate celebrations will be held in Oslo for the Nobel Peace Prize.