World’s first AI chef to open restaurant in September

A restaurant that bills itself as "dining in the future" is set to open in September.

The dining experience at WOOHOO in central Dubai, a stone's throw from the world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa, will be largely shaped by artificial intelligence.

While human hands will still assemble the food, for now, everything else - from the menu to ambience to service - will be designed by a culinary large-language-model called "Chef Aiman."

Ahmet Oytun Cakir, a co-founder, explained that Aiman – a blend of "AI" and "man" – has been trained on decades of food science research, molecular composition data and over a thousand recipes from cooking traditions around the world.

While Chef Aiman can't taste, smell or interact with his dishes like a chef normally would, the model works by breaking cuisine down to its component parts like texture, acidity and umami, and reassembling them into unusual flavour and ingredient combinations, according to Aiman's developers.

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These prototypes are then refined by human cooks who taste the combinations and provide direction, in an effort led by renowned Dubai-based chef Reif Othman.

"Their responses to my suggestions help refine my understanding of what works beyond pure data," Aiman said in an interview with the interactive AI model.

The goal, Aiman's creators say, is not to supplant the human element of cooking but to complement it.

"Human cooking will not be replaced, but we believe (Aiman) will elevate the ideas, creativity," said Oytun Cakir, who is also the chief executive of hospitality company Gastronaut.

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Aiman is designed to develop recipes that re-use ingredients often discarded by restaurants, like meat trimmings or fat, he said.

Longer term, WOOHOO's founders believe Aiman could be licensed to restaurants across the globe, reducing kitchen waste and improving sustainability.

Chef-like robots, AI-powered appliances and other high-tech kitchen gadgets were all featured at CES 2024, the multi-day trade event put on by the Consumer Technology Association.

Displays included a cocktail-mixing machine akin to a Keurig, and a robot barista whose movements are meant to mimic a human making a vanilla latte, all holding out the promise that humans don't need to cook — or mix drinks — for themselves anymore.