The 'sci-food' bistro serving dishes made by robots

IN Zagreb, the Bots & Pots kitchen is home to various robots, programmed to concoct any dish on the daily menu, from risottos to pasta or stews. Once loaded with ingredients, the robots measure out doses, mix them and cook them.

Bots & Pots is billed as the first restaurant in the world where all the dishes are prepared by robots, autonomously, or almost. This restaurant uses GammaChef robots, made by the startup of the same name, also from Zagreb, providing the best possible form of promotion for the devices.

GammaChef is a robot capable of preparing all kinds of unique dishes, once their recipes are programmed into its system. The ingredients are first placed in dedicated compartments, then the robot selects them, measures them out, seasons them, mixes them and finally cooks them. It promises to deliver identical meals, both in terms of proportions and taste, where a human may not be as consistently precise every time.

Currently, the restaurant's menu features chili con carne tortillas, Thai red curry, shrimp and zucchini pasta, chicken and truffle gnocchi, and a seasonal salad, among other dishes. However, the restaurant is only open from Monday to Saturday, with Sunday being the robots' day of rest.

This approach is reminiscent of Cook-e, a robot capable of measuring, cutting, mixing and cooking all kinds of ingredients to make tasty dishes, served in less than two minutes. This French invention turned heads at the Viva Technology trade show in Paris in 2021, proving that relatively simple recipes can now be entrusted to machines.

The idea of robots taking up roles in restaurants is increasingly gaining ground, from a pizza-making robot called Pazzi (whose eateries have now closed) to the robotic arm cooking fries at a US fast food chain.