Fura Cocktail Bar In Singapore Uses Mealworms And Crickets In Their Menu.

Take a sip of one of Fura’s cocktails, and you’d be forgiven for thinking that it’s simply just a well-made libation in a fancy Singapore bar. But its simple appearance belies some surprising ingredients.

The martini features not olives as its centerpiece, but jellyfish and oil made out of seaweed. Another drink appears to highlight caviar—but rather than the valuable roe, it’s tiny balls of black garlic.

But the most attention-getting drink is a margarita made with stir-fried mealworms.

The twists aren’t there for shock value. The 60-seat Fura, which opened its doors in early September 2023, is the latest experiment in one of the world’s most competitive drinking scenes.

It blends sustainability with chic, even while having to stay profitable in Singapore, where the price of everything from raw materials to labor has jumped in recent years. To top it off, one of the most notable components planned for the menu - insects - can’t even be legally sold as food in the country yet.

Taking on this challenge are couple Christina Rasmussen and Sasha Wijidessa, who are both under 30 and already made names for themselves in the hospitality arena. Rasmussen was the head forager at Noma, the 3-Michelin-star restaurant in Copenhagen. Wijidessa is Asia commercial director for the Danish spirit distillery Empirical, which is becoming internationally renowned for its unorthodox alcohol blends.

They’re betting Fura’s menu—which they call “a journal of future food”—will woo a new generation of environmentally conscious drinkers and diners. Cocktails start at US$18 with names that are very much tongue-in-cheek and contain few traditional flavors.