Michelin-starred Copenhagen restaurant Noma has announced a ten-week pop-up in Kyoto, Japan. It only takes place from October, but you have to sign up now for reservations.
For many years, the Copenhagen restaurant Noma was considered the best in the world of fine dining. It received three Michelin stars (and one Michelin Green Star for sustainability), defended the title of the best restaurant in the world several times and raised a generation of influential chefs, spreading its emphasis on local ingredients typical of the Nordic countries, experimental procedures and perfectly tuned service.
Everything was going great: chef René Redzepi’s restaurant, founded in 2003, prospered, was booked several months in advance and attracted all the ambitious chefs of the world, including the Czech Republic. But a year ago, a turning point occurred, and its boss announced that Noma, whose dishes attracted the world’s gastronomic community to Copenhagen, would close in 2024.
The reason for the radical decision? The equation stopped working, where on the one hand there was a fair remuneration of almost a hundred employees and on the other hand the maintenance of high culinary standards that the market is willing to accept. One of the variables could have been the coronavirus pandemic, which dealt a big blow not only to fine dining.
«We have to completely rethink the industry and come up with a different way of working,» Redzepi told The New York Times about the closure of his gastronomic mecca. It has been the target of criticism several times over the years: a big wave of it was raised in 2022 by a Financial Times article describing the unsatisfactory and toxic working conditions of interns, who were barely paid a few years ago at Noma.»In order to continue to be Noma, we have to change. That’s why we want to share some exciting news with you, dear guests and friends. Winter 2024 will be the last season of the Noma restaurant as we know it. We are starting a new chapter of Noma 3.0,” reads an Instagram post dated January 5, 2023.
The new chapter that Noma has decided to write is also the several-week pop-ups, which the staff started last year in Kyoto, Japan, and will follow up on them this year: from October 8 to December 18, Noma will operate in Kyoto’s Ace Hotel.
If last year the Noma employees, who traveled to Japan with their children and significant others, focused on the spring menu, this year the team of several dozen members will focus on autumn and its ingredients, aromas, textures and tastes.
“The explosion of red and gold that defines this time of year is stunning. So are the ingredients that are synonymous with autumn in Japan – the wonders growing in the forest, the wonderful seafood and the diverse game. By working closely with an incredible network of suppliers and artisans, our connection to one of the richest food cultures in the world deepens,” says the Nomy website.
The menu that the restaurant will introduce in the fall is based on the travels of its chefs in Japan. The team teamed up with producers of natural wines or sake, master fermenters, cutters or potters, who made special tableware for the pop-up.
Have you booked your flights yet? Not so fast. As in the case of the Danish restaurant, there will be a shortage of vacancies. In order to have the chance to fight for them at all, you have to sign up for a special newsletter. It will arrive in your e-mail at noon on May 14, and only then can you reserve your seats.
The Japanese pop-up will be open four days a week, and if you have free dates, you can count on ordering the entire tasting menu with alcoholic or non-alcoholic pairings.
The price for the whole package, which can be increased by accommodation at the venue, is 840 euros plus a ten percent service charge per person. The menu will thus cost approximately 23 thousand crowns per head.
«After our second stop in Kyoto, we will return to Copenhagen for another Ocean Season at the beginning of 2025,» says Noma’s website, referring to one of its menus, which is normally served from January to May. «Then it’s time to start writing a new and bold chapter for our restaurant.»
What exactly that means, we can only guess. Noma has already closed once in the past, in 2016. The year before that, it went to Tokyo with its employees to the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, and a year later it went on another trip, this time to Sydney, Australia. This was followed by Mexico, where, however, Noma was criticized for gastronomic cultural appropriation and accused of gastrocolonialism.
After worldwide pop-ups, the restaurant subsequently returned to Copenhagen, where it opened at a new address in 2018. Today’s Noma 3.0, as the Copenhagen culinary icon has been rechristened, will, according to the official statement, be transformed into a gastronomic laboratory, a test kitchen that will deal with the innovation of technological procedures and the development of new flavors and products for the Noma Projects platform.
“We will be traveling and looking for new ways to share our work. Is there a place in the world where we have to go to learn something? Then we will do a Noma pop-up,” the statement read.
And when the team gathers enough new ideas and tastes, then apparently they will present a new seasonal menu directly in the Copenhagen kitchen.
