Lars Williams

The Path

Head of research and development at Nordic Food Lab (2010–2012) put method at the center of Lars Williams’s work, with curiosity and precision doing the heavy lifting. The title reads like lab work, but the output sat firmly in the realm of taste, texture, and controlled discovery. That approach carried into Noma Restaurant (2012–2016), where he worked as chef on a stage known for scrutiny, repetition, and the demand that every idea justify itself. The move from research to kitchen did not replace one discipline with another. It tightened the same set of priorities. By the end of Nordic Food Lab and Noma Restaurant, Williams had developed a practice shaped by experimentation on one side and discipline on the other. Since 2017, he has carried that mix into Empirical Spirits, where invention is paired with structure and flavor is treated as the main subject.

The Work Today

Since 2017, co-founder at Empirical Spirits has given Lars Williams a format built for work that does not sit comfortably inside a fixed category. His own description is blunt: “Being uncategorized means that the possibilities are endless.” The line is useful because it frames the method, not the brand — a practice defined by testing how far an idea can move before the category stops being useful. He has also said, “I knew that I want to do something with flavor as the innovation within flavors.” That places flavor where it belongs in his work: not as garnish, but as the mechanism of change. Empirical Spirits extends the same logic that shaped Nordic Food Lab and Noma Restaurant, with unfamiliarity handled through rigor rather than novelty for its own sake.

Signature

Lars's signature dishes include Kaneshichi.

In Their Words “After eight years in place it felt like it was time to branch out and do something different.” “I need to, first of all, try something and just be blown away. It needs to go “wow.”

Acclaim

Research and co-founding Empirical Spirits define the recognition attached to Lars Williams: a practice that reads as both systematic and exploratory. He has also said, “I need to, first of all, try something and just be blown away. It needs to go “wow.”