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Cooking a Michelin-worthy meal in a secluded luxury hotel is challenging at the best of times. There are quirky diets to contend with and high-maintenance guests who won’t settle for anything less than the best. But add a place that is permanently frozen and where your kitchen is closer to the International Space Station than the nearest supermarket, and supply logistics become complicated.

These are the challenges that chefs face White Desert face when preparing menus for the approximately 300 guests who check in to their luxury camps and adventures each Antarctic summer season, which lasts from mid-November to early February. Located in Queen Maud Land in eastern Antarctica, each camp consists of six capsule-style rooms in the frozen desert and can only be accessed by guests via a five-and-a-half-hour charter flight from Cape Town. Much of the cargo arrives on polar supply ships and requires another 800 kilometers of land transportation. A can of Coca-Cola has racked up $37 in transportation costs when opened at the camps’ communal dining table.

White Desert Eco Camp in East Antarctica
White Desert Eco Camp in East Antarctica © White Desert

But despite White Desert’s remoteness, its guests don’t have to subsist on bannock and pemmican. Days can start with parmesan mushrooms and eggs on toast, or shakshuka with Danish feta cheese and fresh basil. Lunch might include herb-crusted salmon or ricotta ravioli, while glacier hikes or emperor penguin safaris come with packaged gourmet sandwiches and thermoses of creamy tomato soup. Evenings begin with chilled avocado gazpacho or crostini with duck liver parfait, all served alongside glacier-chilled cocktails. These give way to multi-course dinners ranging from artfully plated duck confit to family-style Indian feasts with silky butter chicken.

The team has cooked in equally remote kitchens at Everest Base Camp and Elbrus Base Camp in Russia. In addition to food for the guests, each season they have to prepare about 22,000 meals for the 150 employees, so preparations begin in April, months before the first adventurers arrive each November.

Oysters served three ways at the beginning of dinner
Oysters served three ways at the beginning of dinner © White Desert
One of the White Desert team members prepares an adventurer's picnic for the guests.
One of the White Desert team members prepares an adventurer’s picnic for the guests. © White Desert

From a central kitchen in Cape Town, the team oversees the creation and shipping of almost 45 tonnes of food cargo per season. When possible, meal components – such as boeuf bourguignon, garlic mashed potatoes, croissant dough or meringue – are pre-prepared and frozen, then stored in naturally cold “igloo” freezers at White Base Camp. Desert before cooking and serving. Eggs, vegetables and other fresh ingredients, along with any last-minute guest requests, arrive on the weekly flight from Cape Town and are stored in insulated faux fur boxes to prevent freezing, while ice from the glacier, melted and double frozen. filtered, provides drinking water.

“We’ve spent years perfecting our menus to see how different ingredients react to freezing, and we regularly test all meals for flavor and visual appeal,” Louis Jansen Van Vuuren, my trip’s food and beverage manager, told me. Just like on an airplane, the extreme dryness of the continent’s atmosphere affects key taste receptors, such as nasal mucus. To balance those reduced flavor profiles, the dishes are deliberately robust, drawing heavily on bold flavors from Thai, Indian and Greek cuisines. The extra salt offsets the seasoning flavors that are lost during the freezing process.

The dining room at Whichaway Camp, White Desert's luxury accommodation
The dining room at Whichaway Camp, White Desert’s luxury accommodation © White Desert

The wine, of course, flows freely: both at the dining table in the camps’ air-conditioned common room and at the base camp’s igloo-like ice bar. But combining every dinner with the perfect drink is not easy. “A bottle of premium wine usually weighs around a kilo,” says Ingrid Motteux, founder of a Cape Town-based wine consultancy. As for the winewho has selected the camps’ concise but compelling wine list. “Carrying individual bottles would not only increase the aircraft’s payload, but would also require transporting the empty bottles back to Cape Town.”

Motteux has worked with leading South African wineries to produce 30 liter barrels of their best wines. This reduced the equivalent weight of a 40-bottle pack to just 1.4kg, with barrels recycled in Cape Town.

Cold avocado gazpacho with apple sorbet and tempura shrimp served as canapés
Cold avocado gazpacho with apple sorbet and tempura shrimp served as canapés © White Desert
The igloo-shaped bar at Eco Camp
The igloo-shaped bar at Eco Camp © White Desert

As expected, flavor profiles can vary at sub-zero temperatures, and Motteux has adapted the wines to the unique conditions of Antarctica. “With its rarefied atmosphere, extreme dryness and generally high altitude, Antarctica is a particularly challenging environment for wines,” he says. “In whites, especially sauvignon blancs, the acidity is accentuated and the wines can have an unpleasant taste. In great reds, the oak tannins can seem harsh and overly astringent, easily overpowering the fruit character.”

For Stellenrust winery’s award-winning chenin blanc, he added a botrytized portion to enhance its mouthfeel and honeyed richness, ensuring it retains flavor in sub-zero temperatures. Similarly, it worked with Journey’s End to modify its premium chardonnay.

Camp Whichaway, East Antarctica
Camp Whichaway, East Antarctica © White Desert

Every Antarctic operation has an environmental cost, but White Desert aims to keep its footprint as small as possible. Dry goods are repackaged to remove unnecessary cardboard and plastic, and preventive measures (such as peeling potatoes and carrots in Cape Town) reduce solid waste that is sent back at the end of each season for recycling or responsible disposal. White Desert also powers its aircraft with a blend of sustainable aviation fuel produced in part from used oils and greases, offsets all of its operational emissions, and is investing in carbon-absorbing seagrass restoration projects.

The one thing guests might not find on White Desert’s menu? Frozen. For all its icy nature, not even Antarctica is cold enough.

Chris Schalkx traveled as a guest of White Desert; from $71,500 per person for a five-night stay, with transport from Cape Town

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