This French astronaut’s food in space? Foie gras and lobster bisque.

French cuisine has a reputation for being among the world’s best. So what’s a French astronaut do to when faced with the prospect of spending months aboard the International Space Station eating freeze-dried food straight from the packaging?

Recruit a Michelin-starred chef to reimagine French classics like foie gras and lobster bisque was the answer for Sophie Adenot, who is due to undertake her first space mission in 2026.

The meals designed by Anne-Sophie Pic will make up the “bonus food” taken to the ISS during Adenot’s εpsilon mission, the European Space Agency said in a statement Tuesday.

Food in space is typically freeze-dried and comes in plastic packaging from a list of preapproved items, the ESA said. Fruit and vegetables are a rare luxury that are available only when a spacecraft arrives with supplies.

Astronauts, however, are able to have specially catered “bonus food” that makes up about 10% of what they eat. This is usually developed in partnership with a chef, and astronauts say it boosts mental well-being, adds variety and helps them bond with fellow crew members when shared in orbit, according to the ESA.

Adenot said that she connected with Pic after a meeting in Paris and that the food will delight fellow astronauts and allow them to reconnect with life on Earth. Describing Pic’s cuisine as “deeply influenced” by the land, she said: “This is important to me because I grew up in the countryside, and it will remind me of my roots.”

The menu for the mission includes starters such as foie gras on toasted brioche with candied lemon, lobster bisque with crab and caraway, parsnip velouté with curry and smoked haddock, and onion soup with pink peppercorns and gratinéed croutons.

Main courses include shredded braised beef with black garlic and smoked vanilla, and poultry with voatsiperifery pepper, tonka bean and creamy comté cheese polenta. For dessert: coconut and smoked vanilla rice pudding, as well as chocolate cream with hazelnut flower and coffee.

“During a mission, sharing our respective food is a way to invite our crewmates to discover more about our culture,” Adenot said. “It is a very special bonding moment for all of us and a welcome change in our day-to-day routine. I have no doubt they will be as enthusiastic as I am when they get a chance to taste Anne-Sophie’s dishes.”

Adenot is a multilingual helicopter pilot who has undergone basic military training. She studied engineering and spacecraft before completing her astronaut training in April last year. On board the ISS, she will carry out European scientific experiments and research.

Pic is a “member of the highly exclusive club of female three-starred chefs,” according to the Michelin Guide, which describes her as an “iconic figure.” Her Restaurant Pic in Valence, France, won Tripadvisor’s Best Restaurants Award in 2024. She was also named the world’s best female chef in 2011 by San Pellegrino’s World’s 50 Best Restaurants Awards.

Pic said she was thrilled to be involved in the mission, as “cooking for space means pushing the boundaries of gastronomy.” She said her research team embraced the challenge of “preserving the emotion of taste despite extreme technical constraints.” The food was made in conjunction with Servair, a French airline catering company, which helped adapt and manufacture the recipes by sterilizing the food in flexible bags, the ESA said.

A healthy, varied, and nutrition-packed diet is critical for astronauts, who lose bone and muscle mass while in space. Space agencies also face the challenges of how to store food for months, keep it lightweight, and ensure crumbs do not float away and become embedded in equipment. Freeze-dried scrambled eggs, for example, are typically subject to complaints because they are deemed “too crumbly and difficult to eat in microgravity,” NASA said, adding that the freeze-drying process is predominantly to blame.

While Pic’s menu is likely to be hotly anticipated, it won’t be the first time a famous chef has been tasked with serving gourmet food in space. Last month, the ESA announced Belgian astronaut Raphaël Liégeois, who is due to travel on the same mission as Adenot, would take Belgian endive with ham gratin and boulets à la liégeoise — a local meatball dish — into space. He worked with renowned chef Wouter Keersmaekers of De Schone van Boskoop restaurant in Antwerp to develop the space-friendly versions. Astronaut Thomas Pesquet worked with French chefs Thierry Marx and Alain Ducasse in 2016.

The Alain Ducasse Foundation designed meals for ISS astronauts on a 2006 mission that could be used for celebratory moments, the ESA said at the time.