Disgusting Food Museum Malmö

Click here for Swedish Version

Temporary changes due to COVID-19

Government-mandated maximum occupancy numbers may limit our ticket availability. Buy your ticket online rather than at the door to minimize wait time.

Hand sanitizer is mandatory and provided to all visitors. Facemasks are available for free but not mandatory. The tasting bar is limited to 3 groups at a time, with ample space between. All surfaces are sanitized during the day.

Food is so much more than sustenance. Curious foods from exotic cultures have always fascinated us. Unfamiliar foods can be delicious, or they can be more of an acquired taste. While cultural differences often separate us and create boundaries, food can also connect us. Sharing a meal is the best way to turn strangers into friends.

The evolutionary function of disgust is to help us avoid disease and unsafe food. Disgust is one of the six fundamental human emotions. While the emotion is universal, the foods that we find disgusting are not. What is delicious to one person can be revolting to another. Disgusting Food Museum invites visitors to explore the world of food and challenge their notions of what is and what isn’t edible. Could changing our ideas of disgust help us embrace the environmentally sustainable foods of the future?

The exhibit has 80 of the world’s most disgusting foods. Adventurous visitors will appreciate the opportunity to smell and taste some of these notorious foods. Do you dare smell the world’s stinkiest cheese? Or taste sweets made with metal cleansing chemicals?

EXHIBITED DELICACIES INCLUDE:

  • Surströmming – fermented herring from Sweden.
  • Cuy – roasted guinea pigs from Peru.
  • Casu marzu – maggot-infested cheese from Sardinia
  • Stinky tofu – pungent bean curd from China.
  • Hákarl – well-aged shark from Iceland.
  • Durian – infamously stinky fruit from Thailand.

Temporary alcohol exhibit

A new temporary exhibit with disgusting alcohol is located in the museum. The exhibition includes Soviet-era surrogate alcohol, the 55% beer End of history sold in a taxidermied squirrel, South Korean poo wine, and Icelandic sheep dung smoked whale testicle beer.

Media Mentions

  • Even the foods that appear at the museum in their real forms posed unusual difficulties. To make cuy, a Peruvian dish, West had to watch several YouTube videos on how to skin and boil a guinea pig. “I sent my wife and children away the day I did it,” he recalled. “It just felt wrong, bordering on criminal.” For a South Korean wine that demanded the “fresh turds” of children, Ahrens found himself scooping up his eight-year-old daughter’s excrement and fermenting it with rice wine. The final product is on display at the museum, in a gallon jug, though Ahrens has not mustered the will to try it.

    The New Yorker

    The Gatekeepers Who Get to Decide What Food Is “Disgusting”

  • In this episode of the Atlas Obscura podcast, we visit a food museum in Sweden that challenges what exactly makes something delicious … or disgusting.

    Atlas Obscura

    Podcast episode

  • It is a hands-on, tongues-out experience. At the Museum of Disgusting Food in Malmö, in Sweden, all the world’s great cuisines are represented. Each exhibit is considered a delicacy somewhere, but strikes many unaccustomed palates as revolting. Visitors are invited to handle a raw bull’s penis and sip liquor with dead mice in it.

    The Economist


  • The idea that anything labeled “food” can be described as “disgusting” is a minefield, running up against cultural tastes and personal preferences, not to mention the shrinking ability of some countries to feed all their people. But clearly, if every human had a cornucopia of the world’s edibles laid out on a table stretching from one end of the earth to the next, not everyone would dig enthusiastically into, say, a lamprey pie, a sliver of maggot-infested pecorino or a chunk of rotten shark meat.

    New York Times


  • Fermenterad isländsk surhaj, ost med larver och surkålsjuice. Utställningen som öppnade i Malmö på onsdagen är ingen gourmetmässa – tvärtom så är det äcklet som står i fokus. – Äckel är subjektivt. Det handlar om vad man har vuxit upp med, säger arrangören Andreas Ahrens.

    Expressen


  • There was a time when museums were reserved for fine art and high-brow nonsense we only pretend to understand. These days, the world is full of wonderfully weird museums accessible to the everyman with everything from broken relationships and all things phallic to ramen and barbed wire. Now, Sweden is set to open one more: the world’s grossest food museum.

    The Manual


  • Welcome to the world’s first exhibition devoted to foods that some would call revolting. The museum’s name and its contents are pretty controversial — one culture’s disgusting is another culture’s delicacy. That goes for escamoles, the tree-ant larvae eaten in Mexico, or shirako, the cod sperm eaten in Japan, or bird’s nest soup, a Chinese dish of nests made from bird saliva. The name is meant to grab visitors’ attention, but that’s the point that West says he’s trying to make: Disgust is a cultural construct.

    Washington Post


  • It’s easy to read the museum as a culturally insensitive house of culinary horrors — people (who are not me) in places (that are not here) eat that? And sure, there’s not not a gross-out factor, as evidenced by the name. But West told me the actual mission is the opposite: By really diving into the world of disgust, he’s hoping he can change the way people eat, and maybe save the world.

    Vox


  • Disgust is considered one of the basic human emotions, much like Pixar’s movie Inside Out showed us. It protects us from disease by making us avoid unsafe food— and yet while the emotion itself is universal, the food that we classify as “disgusting” is not. And that’s exactly why Swedish Samuel West and Andrea Ahrens created a museum dedicated to disgusting food from everywhere across the world.

    Lonely Planet


  • The main objective is to make it fun, interesting and interactive," said West, who explains that the exhibition is quite expensive since about half of the dishes are replaced every two days.

    20 Minutos


  • The name of the museum leaves little suspense on what will be there. On the menu, eighty culinary specialties that the world does not envy.

    Slate France


More media mentions and videos

Where to find us

Malmö, Sweden

Södra Förstadsgatan 2.

Hours

Wednesday – Sunday: 12:00 – 18:00

Closed dates

We are currently closed, the museum is being moved to a new location, we open again July 1.

Prices

Adult: 185kr
Student/Senior: 150kr
Children 6-15 years old: 50kr (only with guardians)
Children under 6 years old: two children enter for free per parent/guardian.

How to get there

Take a train to Malmö Triangeln, follow Rådmansgatan that then becomes Södra Förstadsgatan. We are located just at the intersection to Drottninggatan.

Do you visit us by car? Park in Parkeringshuset Anna.

Disgusting Food Museum is located 10 minutes walk from Malmö Triangeln and 13 minutes walk from Malmö Central station. There is plentiful parking in the area. We are just across the bridge from Copenhagen, and yes, Danes are also welcome.

Angelica B. AvatarAngelica B.

Fantastic experience! Crazy facts about what us humans see as food. Best was the taster bar with disgusting delicacies from... read more - 5/15/2021 

Nirjona J. AvatarNirjona J.

Amazing experience. Great idea for a museum. - 3/21/2021 

Ashley P. AvatarAshley P.

this place was insane! really gross and disturbing displays, humans are strange 😂😂 really fun and interactive, you can try... read more - 2/25/2021 

Natalie_Cet AvatarNatalie_Cet

5 star rating Empfehlenswert! Sehr interessant und unterhaltsam. Man konnte am Ende 17 verschiedene Grauslichkeiten probieren. Das Personal war sehr freundlich und gesprächig. Hat... read more - 12/05/2020 

209annav

5 star rating Different but so interesting experience Such an interesting, different, weird and exciting experience. Visit with the whole family. Don’t rush. Take time to read and... read more - 11/25/2020 

sburn28

5 star rating Great place to visit; try all the fascinating samples! The museum was really interesting with a lot of good exhibits to read and see. There is a good number... read more - 11/21/2020 


Malin C. AvatarMalin C.

Skitäckligt & skitspännande! 👏🤢😂👌 - 4/11/2021 

Björn K. AvatarBjörn K.

En upplevelse utöver det vanliga. Kul och lärorikt. I botten finns ett antal etiska frågeställningar som vi måste ta oss... read more - 3/27/2021 

Karin V. AvatarKarin V.

Väldigt bra och varierat. Kul med taste bar, allt blev mer verkligt. Och strålande personal 🌟 - 3/06/2021 

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4.7 Stars - Based on 353 User Reviews
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Contact us

General inquiries: info@disgustingfoodmuseum.com
Group bookings, events:booking@disgustingfoodmuseum.com
Press: press@disgustingfoodmuseum.com
Connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
Phone: +46 (0)40 10 17 71

Current, past, and future exhibitions

Current

Disgusting Food Museum Malmö

Open since 2018

Future

Disgusting Food Museum Berlin

 

Disgusting Food Museum Bordeaux

Located in Cap Sciences until November 7 2021.

Popup Paris Cité des Sciences

2-day popup planned for spring/summer 2021

Want to open your own DFM?

Past

Disgusting Food Museum Nantes

6-week exhibit during fall of 2019

Disgusting Food Museum Los Angeles

3-month exhibit during the winter of 2018/2019

Team

Andreas Ahrens

Museum Director & Co-founder
Most disgusting food consumed: Baby mouse wine from China. It tastes like a combination of rotten flesh and gasoline.

Dr. Samuel West

Co-founder
Most disgusting food eaten: duck fetus cooked in its egg from The Philippines.

Merchandise

We have released our line of branded clothing for delivery. You can see our full line in our Teespring store or click directly to one of the designs below. The designs are available as T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, etc.

Disgusting Food Museum is supported by


Malmö Stad / Malmö Town


Event In Skåne

Design by KW43 Branddesign