The 72-Hour Diary of the Culinary World's Biggest Blind Date

Matt Orlando is on his cellphone, waiting for the great reveal from the other side of the line. As if it were the voice of God, Andrea Petrini has just informed him that chef Riccardo Camanini, head chef at Lido 84 in Italy, will be taking over his restaurant, Amass, located in Copenhagen for a week, and he'll be staying at Orlando's house. With Orlando's wife. Petrini lets out a chuckle. What sounds like a sadistic episode of Wife Swap is just the rules of the game for The Gelinaz! Shuffle, the world's largest global dinner event. Forty well-known chefs from around the world are thrown into a giant lottery and given a new home to cook in for one night, which could be in one of any 40 restaurants in 17 countries across the world. And the diners have zero clue as to whose culinary creations will be served to them on one special evening. It's a leap of faith, and Petrini's fever dream concept turned reality.

At Amass, the backyard houses a sophisticated garden, where much of the restaurant's dinner ingredients grow. The (almost) 100 percent organic menu is inspired by Denmark's world-renowned produce with a focus on sustainability. Orlando and his team find daily inspiration in discarded vegetable stems, leftover coffee grinds, day-old bread, and things that bubble and ferment into the night. Nothing goes to waste. During the Gelinaz! Shuffle, Orlando will take over the kitchen at Mission Chinese Food in lower Manhattan, where spicy chilies, flaming woks, and David Lynch-inspired decor thrive. Any other week, and the American ex-pat would have missed the spectacle that was the 2016 American election.

At Lido 84, located on the western shore of Lake Garda in northern Italy, Camanini and his team draw on a larder of citrus fruits, olive oil, and fresh fish. His staff all get to spend time on different sections to create a sense of community and involvement in the restaurant, so you might find a sommelier doing morning prep, or a line cook sorting out the flower decorations. For the Gelinaz! Shuffle, Camanini has arrived in Copenhagen with an open mind and empty-handed – except for some pig's bladders. "The challenge," he says, "is to use all the local ingredients."

Sunday 8:30 PM, New York: Matt Orlando is sitting at the bar at Mission Chinese Food, bleary-eyed and smiling, fresh from the airport. He's sipping on a MSG margarita. "They have fresh bread from a wood-fired oven here!? We've got to do something with this." He's trying to figure out how to mimic Amass's iconic two-week fermented potato bread without pissing off the New York City health department. Jet lag is setting in.

Monday 1 PM, New York: Orlando heads into the kitchen at Mission Chinese Food and pulls out the kitchen's pantry items—fermented black beans, sake lees, koji, black walnuts—along with some of chef de cuisine Quynh Le's own experiments: one-year salted broccoli, black garlic, aloe salt, preserved salted citrus peel, aged miso, sprouted coconut. Sprouted what?

8:03 PM, Copenhagen: Camanini has arrived in Copenhagen. He heads to restaurant 108 where he has dinner (raw shrimp with sweet and salted plums; a hunk of glazed short rib) with the other visiting Gelinaz chefs and René Redzepi.

Tuesday 11 AM, New York: It's Election Day, but Orlando isn't focused on the future of America. His goal is to make a carrot taste more like a carrot. He's using the Amass "dehy-rehy" technique on New York's root vegetables by cooking carrots until tender, dehydrating them, then reducing ten liters of carrot juice into 1 liter. Later, he'll rehydrate them in the reduction with a touch of white miso.

2 PM, New York: Election results are still hours away, but it's time to consider booze. "We do Negronis at Amass, so I think we should do a weird Negroni on Thursday night," says Orlando. Sam Anderson nods, "Let's burn it." Orlando smiles. "We have bonfires at Amass every night, so this sounds perfect."

Wednesday 10:17 AM, Copenhagen: It's a morning gin tasting for Camanini's gin and tonic dish. Bo Bratlann, restaurant manager and sommelier at Amass, asks Camanini if he wants the normal or the "Navy strength," then explains that the latter is called that because the proof is high enough that if there's an accident at sea and the gin spills all over the gunpowder, the gunpowder will still ignite. Camanini chooses the Navy strength.

8 AM, New York: The streets of New York City are dead quiet. Even the tourists have nothing to say. As of 2:30 AM this morning, Donald Trump is President-Elect of the United States. Matt Orlando and chef de cuisine Quynh Le head to the Union Square Farmers Market to see about produce. There is a literal dark storm cloud over the city, and it's beginning to drizzle, but the ominous tropical heat wave suggests the apocalypse is coming. The chefs pick up a hefty haul of green pumpkins and hail a cab back to the restaurant. Police cars block the streets around the square because of the swarms of protesters beginning to form. They're planning to march to Trump Tower tonight.

12:30 PM, Copenhagen: Camanini and the Amass sous chefs try to figure out how the hell they're going to serve the cacio e pepe tableside. The pasta will be cooked in a pig's bladder.

12 PM, New York: Pork jowl is massaged with black pepper. Hamachi loin is getting broken down. Pumpkins are cut into quarters and placed into vacuum-sealed bags, which will be cooked in dry-aged beef fat infused with squid. Orlando holds a bag of them: "We make black pumpkin skin now at Amass, wherein we put the pumpkin skins in a dehydrator in a vacuum-sealed bag for 6 weeks, and it takes on a mole/miso-esque flavor when it turns black. The aged miso here really reminds me of that dish, so we're going to make a sauce out of it." Preserved, salted citrus peels are bubbling on a stove into jam with ginger, sake, and honey that will be served with black walnut skin cake. Fresh noodles are inoculated with koji powder for the next 24 hours. The kitchen is very quiet.

Thursday 10:30 AM, Copenhagen: Gardener Jacquie Pereira and sous chef David Parrott show Camanini around Amass's various pantries. Riccardo seems especially interested in their fermentation projects. At one point, he asks the chefs: "So, what kind of pasta do you use here?" Chef Jens Mohr replies: "Pasta?" Camanini: "Yeah, what brand?" There is a pause before Jens diplomatically asks what kind of pasta Camanini would like.

11 AM, New York: Soten Oner, a graffiti artist from Copenhagen—the one who's created two custom art pieces for Amass—is coincidentally in New York. Yesterday, after a quick phone call with Orlando, Oner has delivered custom work to put up on the walls of Mission Chinese Food to make this Gelinaz dinner feel like Orlando's back home.

3:09 PM, Copenhagen: Camanini is briefing the staff at Amass, going through each of the dishes they will serve this evening. He's wearing tight black jeans, gray sneakers, and a white chef's jacket with his name embroidered on the left sleeve. The staff is taking notes. One of the courses is a herring broth with mushroom oil: "My mamma used to give me a piece of omega 3 when I was a child. She told me: 'Ricardo, this comes from northern Europe and it's very healthy.' But it tasted so bad because it was oily and had a really intense flavor. So this dish will give you the same idea but with good flavors. I have made a very clean herring broth, very clean like a tea."

3:38 PM, Copenhagen: Staff are discussing how to present the cacio e pepe. Rather than serving it at the table, waiters are going to invite guests into the kitchen and have Camanini carve the pig's bladders open right in front of them. It's the one dish he's looking forward to the most, and dreading the most. "The bladders can explode," says Camanini. "We need to be precise because we can't change the recipe once we start the process."

4:41 PM, Copenhagen: A final test for the cacio e pepe. Camanini is showing chef Alexander Cummings how to turn and shake the bladder while it's poaching. He folds a kitchen towel and places it in his left palm, picks up the bladder from the boiling pot with tweezers, delicately places it on the towel, and gives it a gentle shake and stir. "This has to be done every two to three minutes," he explains. "Be very careful when you tie the bladder. Organize yourself and your station."

5:30 PM, New York: The first dinner service begins in one hour. Matsutake mushrooms—which were supposed to be delivered earlier this morning—have only just appeared. They need to go on the third course: dry-aged beef with smoked plums, black garlic, and spicy radishes.

6:37 PM, Copenhagen: The first course is served in small ceramic bowls: A broth made with fennel, celery, hazelnut, and a postage stamp-sized piece of kombu floating on top. Camanini leans over the chefs as they decorate the kombu with fennel seeds. He wants to channel the flavors of northern Italy where his restaurant is based. "There are lemon trees, fennel, and mandarin. Lots of citrusy flavors. The first taste I wanted to introduce to the guest was this kind of smell."

7:40, Copenhagen: Camanini stirs the risotto, throwing in scoops of fermented black garlic paste and generous handfuls of pecorino. "I already tested the rice before and I cooked it al dente. I asked the chefs if the Nordic people could accept the rice so al dente, and they told me to serve it like this." He plates the risotto, drizzling it around with little flicks of the spoon to create an artistic pattern, spiked with red currant juice.

8:45 PM, New York: The guests have arrived for the 9 PM seating. Leonard Cohen has just died. A whiskey sour—packed with scotch, ginger, and a pinecone garnish—is delivered to a thirsty patron. It's on fire.

8:35 PM, Copenhagen: Waiters bring guests to the pass in small groups. Camanini slices open the pig's bladders, before stirring the emulsified pasta and scooping out individual portions. One of the bladders has exploded, but there is enough to feed everyone. The guests diligently grab the plates with both hands and carry these back to their tables as if it was school lunch service.

9:51 PM, Copenhagen: Camanini plates the dessert with layers of chocolate ganache, crispy tuiles, and burnt pumpkin skin. He grabs what looks like a branding iron that has been heated in the coals of a grill. He presses it gently down on the top layer of chocolate. Smoke billows amid the comforting smell of caramelized chocolate. "I want to give the guest the same smell as when they burn a creme brulee in the kitchen at home."

10:21 PM, Copenhagen: Tasks for serving the sweets are handed out. One chef takes the torrone made with egg whites, dried fruit, and nuts and slices off a piece of the candy for each guest. Another chef is in charge of the big chocolate truffle, infused with juniper and decorated with pine branches. There is an elastic peanut butter candy which is cut with scissors, and, finally, roasted chestnuts served in a paper bag. "That's it. Go to each guest and offer them some chestnuts, just like you would see it in places like Piazza del Duomo in Milan."

10 PM, New York: Patrons are seated for the second seating. Hip-hop is blasting. The first course arrives on plastic family-style platters. Diners awkwardly fumble with their chopsticks to taste the cured hamachi which has been marinated in sake lees and served with a puree of wok-charred shishito peppers, Japanese limes, and Chinese sausage. The second course—fermented black bean flatbread that's been fired in the pizza oven up front—is right behind it and served with charred kale, salted spring onions, salted Chinese broccoli, fermented black beans, and rice bran chili oil. The kale mixture tastes like fermented Burmese tea leaf salad—an earthy, tangy mixture of tea leaves, but it's sheer coincidence.

10:20 PM, New York: Method Man and Mary J. Blige are serenading "All I Need" over the speakers when dry-aged beef tartare with smoked plums, matsutake, black garlic, and thinly sliced radishes appears on the table. Within minutes, wood-fired pumpkin and koji noodles with squid, sawtooth, and dried scallops are delivered. Fifteen minutes later, pork jowl with black pepper, those rehy-dehy carrots, coffee oil, and bean sprouts have stolen everyone's attention. More natural wine is poured like it's a family reunion.

11:20 PM, Copenhagen: Camanini is standing by the bar wearing a brown leather jacket over his chef's whites. He says goodnight to the final guests. They want to come and visit his restaurant in Italy. Camanini smiles: "I've got a little bit of a headache, I'm a bit tired. But this was fantastic."

11 PM, New York: "What is that?" Someone asks and points to dessert #1. A server politely responds: rye ice cream with matcha and sprouted coconut—the result of when the inside of a coconut becomes solid and turns into a sponge." As if the inspiration for tonight's service was murder by gluttony, Orlando sends warm black walnut cake with salted citrus jam to patrons as the last act. A blonde-haired woman in a crushed red velvet romper complains. "I don't think I can eat that because I'm so full." A few minutes later, she's devoured two.

11:15 PM, New York: Matt Orlando reveals himself inside the dining room. The crowd merrily applause him and the hip-hop is turned down. "Please stick around," he tells the room. "We're going to have an after party." The room slowly clears out, but many diners remain, ready to have a drink at the front bar. More wine is poured, and Evil Twin beers are passed around. Leonard Cohen is dead and Donald Trump is going to be the next president of the United States. "Even though this week has been insane, I'm really glad I was here to experience it with Americans," says Matt Orlando. "Need another drink?"