As well all know by now, the legal cannabis industry is booming, with new businesses popping up almost daily offering everything from packaging and marketing to oil extraction, lighting, and even travel. But one area of particular interest and rapid expansion is edibles—and we aren’t just talking about the pot brownies you made in college. Gourmet food infused with cannabis is being created every day in order to feed the fiending masses. In fact, fine dining establishments with actual cannabis on the menu may not be too far off in the near future.
For most chefs with a desire to cook with cannabis, they must currently do so underground in order to evade current regulations that ban so-called “pot restaurants.” In New York City, a secret dining society called 99th Floor has been created solely for a select group of people to eat and imbibe in a friendly, welcoming environment. With one every six weeks or so, founders Doug Cohen and Miguel Trinidad send out an invite with a secret location to a specially curated list of fans.
“Our goal is to change the way people perceive cannabis via the universal language of food,” explained Cohen in a recent NowThis Weed video. “Everybody understands food.”
“At 99th Floor, we really educate on proper dosing,” added Trinidad. “You want to go down the rabbit’s hole? Go with the full course! You can control your own experience.”
Los Angeles chef Andrea Drummer founded Elevation VIP Co-op, a company that caters high-end, intimate dinner parties, in 2012 after first cooking with “trim” (the trimmings left over after a grower finishes trimming the buds). The caterers are in high demand and even appeared on an episode of Chelsea Does with Chelsea Handler. Drummer hopes that with the recent legalization of recreational cannabis in California, she’ll soon be able to open a full-scale restaurant that’s cannabis-friendly.
“I look at my flower the same way I would any of the other produce that I use,” Drummer told LA Weekly. “I wouldn’t use an O.G. in dessert, for example. Although I am starting to experiment a little with that.”
Not all cannabis consumers need to keep their dinner parties underground though. Residents in the city of Denver recently approved a motion to allow establishments to be cannabis-friendly, including bars, restaurants, and cafes, and in Seattle, a cannabis-friendly food truck from the Magical Butter Studio recently opened a brick and mortar location serving THC-laced surf and turf, caprese salad, and even good ol’ fashioned PB&J.
With the cultural shift currently underway that has allowed the cannabis industry to rise, it probably won’t be long before we see fine dining establishments that don’t just support cannabis, but actually serve it too. Could a cannabis chef be awarded a Michelin star? Perhaps the title of Top Chef? Only time will tell, and we’re getting the munchies just thinking about it.
