Brunch Nocturno de Dragobete

A Rico Supper Club Experience

2024 | Copenhagen

 

On the night of Dragobete (celebrated on the 24th of February) the Romanian celebration of love, we invited our guests to a Brunch Nocturno—a dark feast where mythology, ritual, and the strange pleasures of the palate came together. In the spirit of Morticia and Gomez Addams, our Romanian-Mexican union set the stage for a love that is both eternal and eccentric, passionate and macabre.

Served as a Mexican breakfast meets Romanian lunch , this was no ordinary meal. It was an exploration of the gastro-obscura, touching on the rituals of ancient offerings, the beauty of acquired tastes, and the flavors that challenge the senses. From "bat wings" to "infected quesadillas" and "the arm of our enemies", the menu played on the unsettling, the mythical, and the deliciously grotesque.

Love, after all, has always been tied to sacrifice, devotion, and ritual—and what better way to honor it than by coming together for a feast that embraced both pleasure and the macabre?

Concept & Inspiration:

Dragobete, the Romanian god of love, is a figure tied to both spring’s renewal and ancient fertility rituals. Unlike the sugary romance of Valentine’s Day, Dragobete’s love is wild, untamed, and bound to the rhythms of nature. In old traditions, young lovers would run into the fields to pick the first flowers of the season, while others would cut their fingers and mix their blood, binding themselves in secret pacts of passion and fate.

Meanwhile, in Aztec mythology, love and sacrifice were inseparable. The gods demanded offerings of hearts and limbs—not only as payment but as a way to keep the world in balance. To eat the flesh of one’s enemies was to absorb their strength, just as to offer food to the gods was to secure love, prosperity, and protection.

This Brunch Nocturno merged these traditions into a feast of shadows and devotion—a culinary ritual where food became an offering, a story, and a dare.

The Menu – A Dark Banquet of Love & Sacrifice

A selection of dishes that played with perception, mythology, and the eerie pleasures of acquired taste:

Savory Rituals:

  • "Bat Wings" – charred, spiced, and roasted, resembling the creatures of the night that guide lost souls (chicken wings marinated in a brine with activated charcoal and other spices and salsas).

  • "Infected Quesadilla" – stuffed with huitlacoche, the revered Mexican "corn smut" once feared as a plague but now treasured as a delicacy (with mexican blue corn tortilla).

  • "Insected Guacamole" – A smooth avocado spread topped with chapulines (grasshoppers), recalling the ancient protein sources of warriors, with blue-corn totopos.

  • "Muertos Enterrados" (Buried Dead) – Baked egg rested in mole negro, the sacred, smoky sauce that was once reserved for ceremonies honoring the dead.

  • "The Arm of Our Enemies" – A sculpted ham-and-cheese limb, referencing the Aztec tradition of offering body parts to the gods.

Sweet Offerings:

  • "The Food of the Gods" – A chili-infused chocolate treat, echoing the sacred cacao drinks consumed by Aztec nobility and warriors before battle—or before love (a dense and rich chocolate cake with chipotle chilli flakes).

The Ritual – Dining as Devotion & Play

In keeping with the spirit of the Addams family, where love is both darkly poetic and deeply felt, this Brunch Nocturno invited guests to step into a world where food, love, and myth converged.

  • "Sit in Your Lover’s Seat" – Guests found their places not by name, but by hand-drawn portraits, forcing them to face their partner and lover.

  • The Dance of Flavor & Fear – Acquired tastes, strange textures, and deep flavors became a journey through sensation and memory, blurring the line between what we find appetizing and what we learn to desire.

  • The Final Offering – As in ancient times, food was shared as a symbol of devotion, reminding us that to eat together is to bind ourselves to one another—if only for one night.

Outcome & Reflection:

Brunch Nocturno de Dragobete was a celebration of love in its most intense, mysterious, and ritualistic form. It challenged guests to rethink the boundaries of taste, explore the myths behind their meals, and revel in the theatrical, delicious darkness of shared experience.