Noma, an abbreviation of nordisk mad meaning Nordic food, is what this restaurant is all about. However, saying that Noma does regional Nordic cuisine doesn’t do the philosophy even small justice for a long list of reasons. First, historically, there has been no real Nordic cuisine of merit. In the recently published book on Noma (Time and Place), it details that in the 1970s Michelin inspectors declined to visit Denmark because ‘there was probably not a single restaurant worth visiting’. The restaurants that were there tended toward Southern European cuisine and when René Redzepi laid out his vision of Nordic cooking, we’re told that his peers had a string of diminutive terms for the new venture including ‘Seal-Fucker’ and others in the same vein. No other chefs apparently believed a restaurant could be successful selling Nordic-centric food.

Joël Rubuchon in his Las Vegas restaurant is reported to import his lobster from Brittany rather than Maine ‘because Brittany lobster tastes better’. That means the lobster has travelled about 6,000 miles to reach the restaurant. Chef Redzepi meanwhile never deviates around the concept of local produce merely to be a crowd pleaser. If it’s not local, it’s not on the menu; you have to admire his integrity. I asked a sous-chef whether this restricted radius of operation made life difficult, he said, ‘no, it’s not so bad, I have a car and can drive up to two hours to get the ingredients I need.’

And nor does Redzepi source local ingredients only to turn them into French dishes by smothering them in classic sauces and dressings because that wouldn’t be Nordic cooking and that wouldn’t respect the ingredient. Respect will be a word that will feature a great deal in the evening’s conversation as we discuss the food.

If that weren’t enough of a challenge by itself, seasonality in a climate as harsh has Denmark’s poses further challenges as to available ingredients in the Winter months. It also means a constantly changing seasonal menu so there's never any sitting back.

We’ll talk more of his food philosophy as the ethos is made real by the dishes we are served but before we sit down at the table, a few of René Redzepi’s own words from the book provide a concise as any explanation of his key ideas:

When you get close to the raw materials and touch them while they are still one with nature, taste them at the moment they let go of the soil, you learn to respect them. As a result, there is never any question of altering the raw material to such an extent that, when it reaches its destination on the plate, it no longer has any connection with its origins... we only do our job properly if we succeed in creating a dish in which we show the history of the raw material and put it in the right context. Without this connection it makes no sense.

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The taxi ride to Noma involves no single track roads with a precipice on one side but with the restaurant set in docklands that appear mostly abandoned at night, these couple of minutes driving through this dimly lit deserted wharf can be quite unsettling in its own way, industrial docks are not known for being bastions of law and order. This is Denmark though where everybody's nice and it’s not long before the taxi sweeps round the back of a warehouse to reveal flaming torches lighting the sign on the wall that simply says ‘noma’. 

The staff are friendly but informal. The inside is relaxed and humming with conversation and the absence of table cloths is another wink to the restaurant’s philosophy. The inside is decorated in Nordic fashion placing substance and functionality over style but never in a jarring way. The warehouse, dating from 1767 further wraps you in Nordic history and with plaster pealing from the walls, original brickwork has become exposed rooting the setting too in authenticity. Our table is by the window overlooking the quay, we instantly like it and instantly feel at ease.

The food is on us almost from the beginning, or rather, the food was already there, we just didn’t know it. Our waiter tells us that before we go to the menu, there will be a number of plates of finger food to enjoy. He also says ‘this is your first course’ pulling forward the flower bowl on the table. He’s not going to tell us exactly what in the bowl we should eat but will leave us to figure it out. The answer is the twigs (at least that’s what we ate), made from malt, juniper leaves and pine leaves served with a crème freche. We’re immediately caught by surprise; we're are already smiling.

While we’re still wondering if we should be chewing on the flowers too, they bring us a plate that has the elements of the earth on: greenery, rocks, moss and more twigs. We’re told this is a course of shallow fried reindeer moss (the twigs here are just twigs and should be left alone). At Heston’s Fat Duck, the moss in his dish is there mostly for theatrical display with melting dry ice streaming over it conjuring up the idea of a forest scene. Here at Noma, there’s no dry ice, rather, you eat the moss so tasting its essence, not merely evoking an idea.

Two bio-dynamic leaks are brought to the table next, the business end has been blanched and deep fried with garlic puree. You’re instructed to bite off the end and enjoy as a single mouthful: absolutely delicious. 

The key ingredient in our next course are sea-buckthorn berries. Sea buckthorn is a bush that grows on the beach that yields berries that are acidic, astringent and high in vitamin C. Noma juices the berries, air dries the juice on flat trays and cuts it into the serving portions. In the picture, this is the orangey-red base. The pinky-red bits on top are wild rose petals, the wild beach rose that grows on the beach near the buckthorn.

Here, you can see the Noma philosophy come through, pairing on the plate two ingredients that are paired in their natural environment. The rose petals are picked by the kitchen staff when they’re in season and this year they harvested 70kg! They're then pickled in an apple vinegar so that they have supplies of rose petal through the winter also.

Foraging is central to everything the kitchen does and all cooks/chefs are expected to participate in the activity, including René Redzepi himself. It serves a purpose on multiple levels: at the basic level, it obtains the necessary plants and herbs for the preparation of dishes but it also teaches greater respect for the ingredients (Redzepi believes) if a chef pulls them from the ground with his own hands. It allows for discovery of new ingredients and therefore new dishes and new tastes and in turn, frees a chef from conventional thinking about what should or should not be on a dinner plate. 

Next up is something we had ‘feared’ but had been told was no longer on the the menu; it was. Presentational wise, it’s a jar of ice, lid on, with something about an inch long, brown but semi transparent on top of the ice. I struggled initially to understand what the waiter was telling me but then, with the lid off, all was clear, this was the live shrimp. Earlier in the year I had made a commitment that at El Bulli, I would try everything on the menu even if I was inclined to believe that I wouldn’t like it, reflecting the fact that the dish was prepared by the best restaurant in the world. Back at El Bulli, it led me to drink what I thought at the time was a glass of hare’s blood (though later found out that this was a typical El Bulli transformation of things not being what you think they are). Now that Noma is San Pellegrino’s best restaurant in the world, I feel compelled to carry the commitment over and resolve to eat the live shrimp.

The shock factor doesn’t end there though. We know the shrimp is alive but think that the ice will have put it to sleep so that at least its life will end under a general anaesthetic; it doesn’t prove to be the case. As my thumb and forefinger come together to grip the shrimp, the little thing reacts and jumps fully across the top of the jar, appearing about as sleepy as we are. I have visions of chasing this thing across the jar top all night and its unexpected Samba does little to make putting it in my mouth seem more attractive where I assume it will continue its disco dancing.

My next move is more successful, I grab it on the side of its body and quickly raise it to my mouth before it can escape. As fast as I can, I bring down the guillotine of my jaws and feel a crunch as the shrimp meets its destiny. I make it quick for both of us. The taste is unlike any shrimp you will have ever eaten before (unless you too have eaten a live one). There’s more juice, more crunch and more sweetness than you’ll ever have had from a shrimp. It’s actually really good and you want to savour the taste but for the most part, your mind is still reeling from the fact that you’ve just eaten a live creature and you want to get it over with so you can say you’ve done it and enjoy the rest of the meal.

We both eat the shrimp and both feel that we’ve pushed the food boundary back a little further. We enjoy a sense of relief also and a sense of shared experience. Two middle aged ladies at the next table to us (who appear to be locals) are served the shrimp at the same time as we are but return it to the kitchen, unwilling or unable to push their boundary. We sit back and feel a little bit superior.

A biscuit tin comes next with two ‘cookies’ in: savoury cookies with speck and blackcurrants. A spruce shoot adorns the cookie. The cookie base is layered with a disc of sorrel, a disc of speck and is then coated with blackcurrant powder with the spruce shoot placed on top. After the live prawn, it feels reassuringly normal, it didn’t jump at us.

The food at this stage has also come very quickly with the next plate arriving as we finish the previous plate. Things will start to slow down a little from now but will still be quite pacey. Worth remembering too is that at this point, we’re still not on the menu, this is the pre menu finger food.

Having had cookies, it’s sandwich time now with a bottom layer of crispy chicken skin, a filling of fresh smoked cheese and crispy rye bread on top. There’s very little that’s better than chicken skin we remarked as the sandwiched disappeared. We are also still talking about the live shrimp at this stage.   

Our waiter then brings an ‘egg’ to the table, but in reality, this is just a vessel. Placed on the table, the top half of the ‘egg’ is lifted off to reveal the real contents, two salted, smoked quails eggs sitting on a bed of hay. The egg has also been vacuum cooked in rose hip vinegar. The hay and egg combination is of course a natural one and this would not be the last time these would be paired. Furthermore, a smoker has been used to fill the presentation egg with hay essence so as you lift the lid, your senses immediately jump to life.

They’re perfectly done and when you reach to pick it up, the side of the egg flexes inward and you wonder if it can hold its own weight or whether your fingers will end up pushing through the surface leaving egg on both your lap and your face. Of course it’s perfect, they’ve done it before and tested it endlessly. In the mouth, the egg oozes; consumed in one mouthful, there’s no money shot here but the egg’s willingness to dissolve in your mouth allows a mental picture of just how perfectly cooked the egg is. We pity the stagiaire who has to peel fifty of the softest quail eggs every day without messing up their perfection.

More playfulness in the next dish as a plant pot with outshoots of green stems is brought to the table. It’s carrots and radishes but they appear to be still planted. We’re told though you can everything in the pot – edible soil it seems. Grab a stem and pull up the root vegetables and they pull out easily but coated in lime green goo and a dark powder that genuinely looks like soil. The green goo is in fact a herb cream, a blend of herbs, shallots, yoghurt and capers. The darker dirt meanwhile is a mix of malt flour, flour, hazelnut flour sugar and lager, mixed, oven dry baked and then combined with a similar non dried mix. The vegetables are of course raw. 

The next snack is hard to describe but has a light pastry base, a middle of herbs, flowers and an emulsion of smoked scallop roe, and a duck film on top. The duck film is made by adding duck fat to duck bouillon which is then brought to the boil. The fat content is so high that a skin forms and this is what is now before us.

This dish was so delicate that as you pick it up, it flexes under its own weight and while it is only three to four inches long, we decide to use both hands to support each end so that it wont break on its short journey from the plate to our mouth. As with many dishes here, the herb-flower content drives a huge amount of the flavours but with herbs that are local and that might never have been used before in any other kitchen you’ve eaten in, the dish is both familiar and strange, something that will be common throughout the meal. 

Here in the CC household, we are partial now and again to a donut. However, if an ordinary jam donut seems a little too healthy for you, you might consider doing it the Noma way and replacing the jam with a filling of pork rillette. The ‘donut’ is in fact a long standing Danish delicacy, Aebleskiver and so fully deserving its place on the menu. Dust down the top of the Aebleskiver with vinegar powder and the result is simply fabulous. We're enjoying it so much that we forgot to picture the inside of our donut v2.1 as our enthusiasm for this dish led us to forget that we even had a blog. 

That took us to the end of the finger food section and had lasted around 45 minuts. Before we move to the main menu however, we are brought a wrapped loaf of warm wholemeal bread made with sour dough. We’re told they only do one type of bread at Noma (this type) reasoning that they would rather do one bread exceptionally well than several reasonably well. This comes with two pots of spread, a goats milk cream, and a pot of pork fat and apple with ground pork scratching on top. It is this latter pot that is the star of the show, concentrated pork flavours with a little pork crackling crunch. The bread was good for sure but in our books, totally eclipsed by the heart attack in a pot of pork fat. We ate it, another week off our lives seemed trivial in comparison to the joy of the taste.

The paired wines also start to arrive; we’ve been getting by on champagne up till now. Interestingly, every wine we’ll be drinking tonight is from Germany. Each month it seems they choose a new country to ‘feature’ with last month being Austria for example. It is one of the paradoxes of Noma, they take everything very seriously but still bring it over in an informal and almost humorous way.

Also worth noting is that up till this point, there has been no knives and forks, it’s been fingers all the way like the majority of the menu at El Bulli. This approach again emphasises the connection to the food allowing an increased sensual experience without the metal intermediary of cutlery as a barrier but also it provides insight into the food itself before tasting as the textures and feel reveal another layer to the food’s identity.

So now it is the first of the menu items, an appetiser and a ‘salad’: a green puree of juiced lettuce mixed with spinach puree and in the centre, fresh hazelnut jelly with fresh shaved hazelnuts and a drizzled with little juniper vinaigrette. It’s nice but we’re still cooing over the pork fat at this point.

Four varieties of bio-dynamic grains next in a watercress puree, dried scallop on each, squid ink sauce and seaweed oil. The dried scallop was nice but we both pick up in our first taste strong flavours of wheatgrass (though we are told this is not a component of the dish). As people who dabble in wheatgrass at home as perhaps our single concession to health, we’re mostly known to wince when we down a shot of it. While this flavour dispersed somewhat as we rotated through the cereals, first impressions as they say last and so we found this dish less to our tastes.

It is explained that when the world was going foam and molecular crazy, Redzepi wanted to push back against the trend and it's the basis for the next dish. We are told that ‘everything in front of you has been prepared by hand so you’ll be eating by hand’ also. It is a tartar of Danish ox with sorrel, juniper powder and tarragon cream. A little shaved horseradish is also mixed in. Eating tartar with our hands was easier than we thought as the meat still had firm texture and could be dragged through the powder and cream. This was the one dish we forget to get a picture of as we were absorbed by the meal.

A rock is then brought to your table. Your eye is first drawn to a vivid orange enormously plump langoustine tail sitting on the rock. Also on the rock sit dots of green emulsion (oyster) and a dusting of purple powder (seaweed).

The langoustine itself has been sautéd on one side for 30 seconds and then with added butter, sautéd on the other side for two seconds only. It is pure, it is fresh and is puts you deeply in touch with this specific ingredient.

For the emulsion of oyster, oyster flesh and parsley have been mixed in a blender with grapeseed oil to emulsify. Rye breadcrumbs are sprinkled on top. With no foams or other ‘tricks’, the oyster emulsion is about as jazzed up as it gets but it is absolutely incredible. The langoustine is so fresh we both want to eat it pure without mixing flavours but the emulsion is oyster in a whole new way. The flavour is intense and the breadcrumbs give a little crunch like it were a little grit in the shell but the normal oyster texture is missing giving way to a texture of mayonnaise. Unsurprisingly, this dish is eaten by hand and made for a very memorable part of the meal.

A more traditional take on oyster follows: a flat oyster arriving in an oven hot cooking pot filled with sea shells and coastal rocks. The oyster is gently poached, served with fresh cream, tapioca and wild beach herbs. It’s delicious.

The next dish puts the focus on potatoes and dairy. In the centre of the bowl is a potato puree made with potatoes in potato stock to give a pure potato flavour; cream is then added to give mashed potato. This is then covered with a milk skin and on top are the tiniest vintage potatoes (two years old). The plate is dressed with chervil and watercress and at the table, a yogurt derived liquid is added (the liquid collected after yogurt is passed through a cloth). Dairy and potato = comfort but with an additional lift from the herbs.

A small but special dish is in front us next, grilled onion, grape juice (the grapes are from a small Danish vineyard!), thyme oil and tapioca pearls. The sweetness of the onion and the acidity of the grapes balance while the thyme gathers the dish together. Simple but so good.

Back to the sea for a local fresh water fish that is a perch-pike cross giving a white fish with a very firm meaty texture (and then cooked perfectly of course). This is served with the stems of root vegetables and a roasted celeriac puree.

The ‘cook your own egg at the table’ is an iconic course at Noma, a course that would normally be stretched in the concept of fine dining but doesn’t seem wrong or out of place here. Your starting ingredients are: hay oil, a bowl of green leaves and herbs, a spoon of thyme butter, one very hot skillet on a bowl of hay, one duck egg in shell, an egg shell of salt and some potato chips. After the hay oil is poured into the skillet, you’re instructed to break the egg into the hot bowl (possibly a challenge for non cooks) and when that’s done, the 2 minute timer is started.

When the timer goes off, the thyme butter is added into the pan as are the greens. We’re told to leave the herbs and chips for further instruction. Then after a further minute or so of cooking, a cheese sauce is poured into the skillet and then we’re told to add the rest of the herbs and crush the potato chips onto the top of the other ingredients. Again we have the blend of a familiar potato and eggs dish but with new infusions (hay and thyme) and in the context of egg and chips, a more unfamiliar herb and flower mix. Again, it feels like new comfort.

And advice for bloggers, the egg in a hot skillet carries on cooking so don’t spend too much time taking pics with your camera as you’ll over cook the egg; the martyrdom of blogging.

We move now to the final savoury as they describe it, though we’re intrigued a little as they’ve given us what looks like a sheathed dagger instead of a traditional table knife. A breast of wild duck arrives, glazed and coated with aromatic herbs with the rest of the dish being apple. On the plate is a powder of apple peel and rose, the tubes are apple pickled in apple juice and the wedges are apple cooked in smoked butter. The Tapaz apple is used as it’s in season, has a strong aroma and has the acidity the kitchen want for the dish. The sauce meanwhile is also made from caramelised apple, apple juice and butter. The herbs were once again hugely powerful, much more so than you would normally find coming from a UK kitchen where they’re less willing to be so bold but that did cause them to risk a contest between the herbs and the duck for the ownership of the dish. The duck held on and with the richness of the meat balanced by the acidity of the apple in its various forms, it was a fabulous way to end the main courses

On the first of three dessert plates, two items were prominent, a decorated half pear and something that looked like a large piece of foam insulation. The pear is grilled with a thin slice of raw pear on top on which is then placed floral greens including heather flowers and lemon thyme. The sauce is a pear sauce with thyme oil. The ‘block’ as the waitress calls it is a pine parfait (with juniper salt on top) and no doubt used to customers thinking that eating this might be impossible after everything that’s gone before she adds that it is lighter than it looks, which it is, dissolving like ice in the mouth.  

For the next dessert, we have Jerusalem artichoke ice cream, served with raw apple and malt, while in the bottom of the bowl is a juice made of apple and malt oil. Again we see apple and malt being used in different ways each time across the starters, mains and now desserts. This was a really refreshing dessert with a lovely contrast between the freshness of the apple and the more earthy dry malt; a great pairing.

Finally, we have a cheese course - dessert hybrid. In the centre is a full flavoured brown runny cheese with dried blackcurrants, tarragon and a little liquorice on top. The granita is made with red beetroot and we’re advised to eat a little bit of everything. As a savoury sweet combination with the crisp granita finish, it sees out the menu nicely. 

We’re very full but not unbearably so as was the case at El Bulli – maybe I’ve just had to much practice now and am altogether a fatter individual. But it’s more than that, the pace was there but it was fast rather than frantic. In some ways too, because the food was natural, less modified and was heavily dependent on fresh greens and herbs, it was never overpowering. The finger food at the start aside, the plates were ‘traditional’ in the respect of both a progression from appetiser through a main and finally to a dessert and in respect of content: each course was mostly a plate or bowl of recognisable food combinations like egg and potato.

A lot has to be said for the environment too. Professional but informal. No table cloths as noted but also no fancy serving plates or glassware. There is exquisite care taken with the presentation of each dish but for the most part, it’s set in a nice but ordinary plate, the food is everything, the plate does not get eaten. As for theatre, frying your own egg at the table is the full extent of the table side performance and you have to do that yourself. No foams, no Nitro and no cascading falls of dry ice.

Also what’s special is that the cooks and chefs who have made the food come out of the kitchen to serve it to you. If Redzepi is keen that a cook feels a connection to the ingredients, he is equally keen that they should feel a connection to the customer. This again is another departure from the world of haute cuisine that we really adored because it allowed us to similarly enjoy a greater connection to the kitchen and the food.

But the real language of this restaurant is the anchor to local ingredients and the respect those ingredients are shown. Can you imagine Ramsay foraging for herbs on a weekend for the Monday service at Hospital Road? For sure, the movement in the food world has been to local food but Chef Redzepi was there long before this idea gathered real momentum. Furthermore, top end dining is always likely to eschew this approach in favour of the best ingredients from wherever at whatever price because that’s what Michelin stars might require. Serving foie gras and Brittany lobster is also in so many ways a less challenging route than having to make do with what’s on your doorstep, especially if the ground is frozen solid for much of winter. Even more challenging for Noma perhaps where local cuisine – Nordic – is barely recognised anywhere in the world including Denmark itself.

Chef Redzepi has gone his own way in developing Noma, anticipating perhaps the trend towards food more harmonised with nature, but most importantly, he has the talent to deliver on the idea. The same idea in different hands could easily have gone spectacularly wrong. Redzepi is undoubtedly another food genius which shines through his connection to nature rather than science, so marking him out quite differently to Ferran Adria or Heston Blumenthall.

We loved our evening at Noma: loved the surprises, loved the food, loved the service. We’re sure too that if we went back three months from now, the menu will have changed up sufficiently to allow us a whole new dining experience all over again. If El Bulli spawned a whole copycat industry of molecular gastronomy, it will be interesting if Noma’s influence takes the food scene back in the other direction; a third way is probably the most likely outcome. Whatever the outcome though, it’s fantastic that Noma’s doing what it’s doing and it was undoubtedly one of the most exciting dining experiences of our lives. 


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