Future Cooking Lab
Future Cooking Lab was founded as a spin-off of Italian university research, with the goal of bringing science to the heart of gastronomy: a concrete tool for innovation, product development, and applied creativity.
The company was founded by Davide Cassi, physicist, university professor, and pioneer of Italian scientific gastronomy. In 2002 he coined the term molecular cooking, and several techniques now widespread in world avant-garde cuisine originated in his research — including ice cream made with liquid nitrogen and dry pre-cooking of legume and wheat flours.
Technologies
The Gastronomic Physics Laboratory has produced two international patents. The first describes a method for preserving cooked food in a controlled low-oxygen atmosphere, keeping it at serving temperature for over 24 hours (EP3030095, 2013). The second covers an ultrasound defrosting process that preserves the organoleptic quality of frozen food (WO2021/124137, 2019).
The team
Future Cooking Lab brings together interdisciplinary expertise — physics, chemistry, food technology, design, communication — with a common denominator: scientific rigour applied to flavour. It has worked with chefs, food companies, cultural institutions, and research centres worldwide.
FCL is now present in the consumer market: the brand appears on the Rebecchi spherification kit, available in major Italian supermarkets.
Davide Cassi
Professor of Condensed Matter Physics at the University of Parma, where he founded and directs the Gastronomic Physics Laboratory. He was the first president of the university’s Degree Course in Gastronomic Sciences. Vice-president of the Science and Cooking World Congress and president of the European delegation.
In 2002, together with chef Ettore Bocchia, he introduced the term molecular cooking and drafted the Manifesto of Italian Molecular Cooking. He has collaborated with Ferran Adrià, Heston Blumenthal, Carlo Cracco, Fulvio Pierangelini, Massimiliano Alajmo, and other leading chefs worldwide.
Grand Prix de la Science de l’Alimentation (Académie Internationale de la Gastronomie, 2013), Premio Caterina de’ Medici, Premio Tarlati.
The spherification kit
Albert and Ferran Adrià invented spherification in 2003. Twenty years later, the Rebecchi Spherification Kit developed with Future Cooking Lab is available to everyone in Italian supermarkets.
Albert Adrià with the kit
Ferran Adrià with the kit — Universitat de Barcelona