OUR CAUSE
Located in different parts of Copenhagen, The Ark Collection restaurants pose a variety of high quality, plant based food concepts, with cool contexts, that happen to be good for the planet. Restaurant Ark is part of this collection, to see our sister restaurants click here.
Our menus are inspired by seasons, local produce but also global influences. The Ark Collection offers places for any occasion, taste or budget.
Through craftsmanship and determination, The Ark Collection exemplifies that plant based food can be exciting and flavorsome.
Only these food characteristics challenge mindsets and can inspire others to eat less meat and thereby ease the current environmental pressure on our planet.
Conscious, yet exciting, dining.
OUR STATEMENT
VISION
We want to keep pioneering the plant based scene in Denmark.
We believe that by posing a unique, positive and attractive approach to the vegan narrative, we continue to dissolve stereotypes, and exceeds expectations.
MISSION
We will continuously create places and dishes that are exciting, have a story, and focus on quality.
We question conventional methods and remind people about the bigger picture. Our choices matter.
We see the good in people, and believe that by bringing them together we can learn how to move forward together.
VALUES
Our projects showcase that businesses can create concepts that ease the environmental pressure on our planet, and we believe that sustainability isn’t simply an option but a must in our business model now and in the future.
As a company we do not preach, nor are we perfect - but we are honest, inquisitive and determined.
Read more about our sustainable policy, practices and efforts below.
OUR SUSTAINABLE MANIFESTO
Sustainability is at the forefront of everything we do. Plant based products and sustainability are a thread woven throughout our entire organization - from food to furniture. Sustainability is not an empty promise, but it is non-negotiable in our business model, now and in the future. We take an all encompassing approach to achieve this, from the products we purchase and serve, the process of delivery, to sourcing, plating, waste sorting and the overall restaurant setting and experience.
Our tasting menu focuses on seasonality and, where possible, local produce. Further more, we turn many of our off-cuts into powders and garnish, re-use our spent wine into sauces, and even save our banana peels for cocktail infusions.
Our sustainable practices spread beyond what is served on the plate, to the process of delivery and preparation. Most of our supplies are within a 2-hour drive to our location, and many of them deliver our products by a 15 minute bike ride.
Our toiletries bear sustainable certificates and we sort our food waste and garbage - like true Danes!
We are not perfect, but we are trying - and truly believe the saying that ‘we do not need a handful of people being sustainable perfectly, but millions of people doing it imperfectly.’
Did you know we co-own our own mushroom farm? Funga Farm is Denmark’s only locally grown, organic, urban mushroom farm growing unparalleled, craft mushrooms. We believe mushrooms are a mighty force to be reckoned with and contribute toward the promise of a more sustainable future.
FORAGING
The months of March through to November we spend foraging for the restaurants. Foraging allows us to source some of our menu super locally by gathering goods from the Danish landscape. We pick about 40 different ingredients from Sjælland, Bornholm and sometimes Sweden
Trained by Noma’s head forager, we follow her mantra of re-introducing the wild outdoors back to restaurants. We forage responsibly - taking only what we need from places of abundance, and plucking some of the produce from their 'tops' encouraging them to grow even more.
OUR BAR
Our cocktails are a creative and contemporary twist on the classics. Driven by a sustainable ‘zero-waste’ ideology and, without compromising on quality, nearly everything on both our food and cocktail menu is homemade. Our sustainable practices include revamping spent wine, tea and coffee grinds into housemade liquors and vermouths, we do not use any citrus - instead we ferment our own flavors and acids to balance our drinks. Our cocktails and back bar use mainly Nordic spirits to enhance the local spirit whilst reducing pollution caused by transportation. Our wines are from small, independent vineyards around Europe. Almost all of our wines are organic, some biodynamic and several distinctly natural. Our beers are from local Mikkeller, and cider is made on Danish apples from Cider Revolution.
TABLEWARE
Our ceramics are crafted by local artist Hannah Blackall, @blacksmithceramics. They are carefully hand thrown on the wheel from high-fire stoneware clays and glazed with a unique satin matt finish. Her pieces are each distinct and her materials are sourced in Denmark - i.e. glazes and clay.
ECO-FRIENDLY INTERIOR DESIGN
Developed with Studio Tine Mouritsen
Plant Boxes
At Ark we love to work with the people from LoudLiving. For us it is important that our partners align with our values, and they do just that with their ethos of sustainable interior craftsmanship and use of recycled materials. Rasmus and his team have built, amongst many interior details, these plant boxes for us out of reused Douglas wood that was taken from a torn down building on Jagtvejen.
SeAWEED LAMPS
Designer: Jonas Edvard
The lamps are a combination of seaweed harvested from Danish beaches and recycled paper waste. When grinded together the natural polymer of the algae ‘glues’ the material together and gives it a light cork characteristic surface.
FURNITURE
Designer: Hvidt & Mølgaard, Sami Kallio
Studio: &Tradition
Our furniture is 100% FSC certified, and pays respect to traditional Danish design. The ‘Drawn’ chair dates back to 1956, but remains relevant even today. Supported by Sami Kallio’s solid wood-work tables, ‘In Between’.
This combination of excellent craftsmanship and organic shapes brings a sense of timelessness, authenticity and beauty to our restaurant.
floor beam stools
These charming logs are our old floor beams we decided to salvage and reuse as lounge stools