There's No Place Like NOMA

So, what’s the big deal? Noma and its founder, René Redzepi, are known for creating New Nordic Cuisine and inspiring an entire generation of chefs the world over. Noma was voted The World’s Best Restaurant in 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2014, before it closed in 2016 and moved to a new location in 2018.  It earned the coveted #1 spot again in 2021. In April, we were thrilled when we scored a reservation for what we thought was a Noma “pop-up” location in NYC.  As it turned out, the reservation we booked was for an entire “Noma Experience”…but, in Copenhagen.  (p.s. we were not the only people who made this mistake)  So, what did we do? We turned in every point we’ve ever earned with American Express and got ourselves to Denmark.

For two people who love and appreciate food as much as we do, this was the experience of a lifetime.  We spent the day with the Noma team learning about fermentation, how they make decisions each season about the menu, the new and growing tea pairings, their commitment to natural/local EVERYTHING, the role sustainability plays, and the team’s constant drive to experiment, innovate, and improve. Our biggest takeaway was that even after twenty years of all of this, they are so excited about the next twenty.  We left inspired, grateful, awestruck…and, very full!!!

Fermentation class.

Workshop in the test kitchen.

This picture does not do this moment justice. We both ate LIVE ants which you can see on this branch if you look closely. Noma is known for doing amazing things in the kitchen with available ingredients. In this case, red ants from nearby forest which yes (and we are not making this up) tasted like citrus. To defend themselves, the ants release formic acid which has a citrus flavor. So, Noma has found a way to use this flavor in a few of their dishes thanks to the local ant population.

We learned a lot about how to use, cook, prepare, steam, dehydrate, and bake seaweed - an amazing, versatile ingredient that may be part of how we all eat in the future.

So much prep goes into everything at Noma. This shows a wall full of photos that help the chefs remember how to plate every unique dish. Some of these are just ideas. Fun to see how they create the magic.

One of my favorite moments of the day was hearing Michael talk about “micro-chives” before 11:00 AM in the morning. There’s no place like Noma. We both had an incredible day and experience.