George Motz, a burly, mutton-chopped Brooklynite, fashions himself as America’s hamburger expert. An enthusiastic carnivore who has chronicled his love affair with ground beef through books and films, Mr. Motz estimates he has eaten more than 14,000 hamburgers over the last 20 years.

But on a frigid Monday in December, Mr. Motz sat down for a burger that promised to be unlike any he had eaten before. He was at Momofuku Nishi, a new restaurant from the celebrity chef David Chang, and he had come to eat the Impossible Burger.

The Impossible Burger wants to be the tech industry’s answer to the Big Mac. Concocted by a team of food scientists in Silicon Valley, it is made from wheat, coconut oil and potatoes, yet it aims to be more than just another veggie patty. Thanks to the addition of heme, an iron-rich molecule contained in blood (which the company produces in bulk using fermented yeast), it is designed to look, smell, sizzle and taste like a beef burger.

Patrick Brown, the founder and chief executive of Impossible Foods, said the goal was to disrupt the multibillion-dollar market for ground beef without killing cows. “You can have uncompromisingly delicious meat without using animals,” Mr. Brown said in an interview.