Noma
If you just landed on this page, you are seeing this - a review of my 3rd visit to Noma. And if my review of this visit is the only one you read, you will miss so much about this amazing restaurant.
My 2nd visit in December of 2023 is simply the best meal I have ever had - or expect to ever have. My first visit in August of 2022 was a wholly vegetarian meal that was simply mind-bending in diversity and flavor.
This visit was a complete disappointment.
Noma has 3 seasons. Vegetable season in the summer (my first visit), Game & Forest in the fall (my second visit) and seafood season in late winter and early spring (this visit). Having announced that they were closing at the end of 2024, I expected that my opportunity to complete all 3 seasons had passed.
When they announced that they were indeed opening for seafood season 2025, I knew I had to come.
Noma created what is now known as "New Nordic" cuisine. Food in this style follows all Danish sensibilities (think Ikea): it is simple, beautiful, functional and attractive. Focusing on seasonal, sustainable and foraged products, New Nordic cuisine lets these products be their best selves, and provides for the eater an authentic, connected experience with each product.
Previous visits produced dishes that were indescribably simple yet mind-bendingly delicious. Noma goes all in. For this seafood season, not only are their massive front doors decorated with shells (photo below), but the lamp shades are made from seaweed. The support beams of the restaurant are covered in actual mussel shells. The experience is intended to be fully immersive.
So it followed that the dishes served were served on (and with) seaweed and kelp, on dishware made from handwoven mangrove boughs. Similar features adorned the two previous visits. For Game & Forest, an entire deer hung from the dining room rafters.
But today, these features seemed kitchy. Forced. Rather than providing immersion, it felt a bit soul-less. Color by numbers. Noma doing Noma things by rote, rather than pushing boundaries and bringing you along for the ride. Notice how many platings included seaweed. Or hand-woven plates. I began to think "Yeah. I get it."
I mean, the first four dishes were all crab. This is not how you arc an inspiring menu.
The food itself was simply sub-par when measured against my previous visits. You see, Noma can only be measured against Noma. Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan were not compared not to their peers, but to themselves. And Noma plays at that level of greatness.
If you ask me about my two previous meals, I will regale you with dish after dish from memory, burned there by a truly unique level of brilliance and sublime deliciousness. Ask me about this one and I'll remember...the first piece of gargantuan crab leg. And that's it.
It's not that the cooking was bad or wrong. There was some truly delicious food! But nothing that would make me grab your shoulder at a party and say "Let me tell you about this...".
And for Noma, that's a disaster.
The best dishes of the night weren't even seafood. They were vegetarian. The beet sashimi was out of this world and the amazake mousse with fruits and kelp was truly sublime. But this is seafood season. And the meal overall just felt flat and uninspired.
Perhaps they burned themselves out at their recent residency in Kyoto. Perhaps reopening past their announced closing date is indeed rote and just intended to "keep it going". Others agree. I found this review on Reddit from a diner who was there this same night (or very nearly so):
"Unfortunately the food was a letdown and by the end we were left confused."
Yep.
So I urge you - please read the other reviews found on this page. Tonight's visit can't remove the monumental history of Noma nor the two previous meals, which are among the very best of my life.
But it can tarnish their reputation. It does damage the brand. And definitely colors my overall view of (and recommendation for) this place.
It pains me to say so.
Noma is closing in 2024. This is fairly earth-shattering in the fine dining world and I could talk endlessly about the reasons and new directions and impacts happening in the fine dining world. (You can get a great view of it by listening to the podcast episode I embedded in my September 24, 2021 review of Joe Beef.)
Noma has 3 seasons: seafood (in the spring), vegetable (in the summer) and game and forest (in the fall). Having already done vegetable season, I thought I would try to get to the other 2...game and forest being preferred.
So off I went to Copenhagen, a short year after my previous visit.
I wish I had the words to describe this meal. I don't. I wish I could share the brilliance and intelligence and deliciousness and composition and plating and on and on and on. Phrases like "best meal of my life" and "could not be improved upon" are likely to have you think "Neat. I bet that was good!"
But my response would be to physically shake you. Slap you like that scene in Airplane! and shout in your face that whatever comes to your mind when I say these things, it's wrong. It falls well short. It's not even in the same league as the dinner I enjoyed this evening.
The opening guinea fowl was insane. The best product imaginable cooked the best way imaginable.
The pear salad that followed was shockingly good. One thing I'm noticing more and more is the huge impact temperature plays in the quality of a dish. These pears (which were perfect) were served super chilled but not frozen in the least. Its sweetness contrasted with pine cones sea buckthorn and gooseberry. Game and forest, indeed.
There was a dish of walnuts. Essentially just walnuts in various styles, textures and flavors. It was mind-blowing.
Pork belly that could make you weep.
Onion mushroom gel broth with sunflower seeds. Served atop a sunflower.
Reindeer heart. (Yep. It was outstanding.)
Peaking with a chop from a wild deer, so perfect that it looked to be out of a cookbook. And it tasted just as good. No wonder a full sized deer was hanging in the dining room.
Desserts were interesting, diverse and flavorful. Who puts chantrelle mushrooms in ice cream? Dairy-free hazelnut ice cream at that. Suck chocolate off of a sumac flower. Creative and odd but totally makes sense to this sumac lover.
Service was far better than my previous visit. And the wine pairings were extraordinary, far eclipsing the juice pairing from last time.
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The world is losing the engine at the very pinnacle of the food train. They have been the engine for a decade. And while they are pivoting to be a research lab, this lover of dining feels that 2025 will take a culinary step back with the loss of this place.
I hope you have had the chance to eat here. Most likely, you haven't. I would love to be kind and tell you that you can find valid and real replacements for the experience this restaurant provides.
You can't.
I fully expect to never again have a meal this good. Ever.
It makes me sad to think about.
Noma is a place with its own inertia. It's own energy. It has been broadly considered the best restaurant in the world for almost a decade now. Very few places can keep up with a reputation like that. Most times, even if it is excellent, it becomes a let down due to the insanely high expectations that are baked in to every guest. I had those expectations. So let me get straight to the point.
Noma is the best restaurant in the world.
Full stop.
End of discussion.
This is "Vegetable" season. (Noma has 3 - Vegetable, Forest & Game and Seafood). The entire menu is 100% vegetarian. Rather than having concern, I was excited to attend during this season. They are known for their use of vegetables so what better way to be immersed into their strength than to attend in summer?
The true brilliance of this meal is the incredible expansion of flavors and textures dish to dish. I would not have thought it possible to achieve with a vegetarian meal. From bright vinaigrettes to unctuous and rich, peppery to savory and even some sweet (as main dishes), with each dish, this menu took you to a far corner of flavor showing a depth of understanding, imagination and technique that simply can't be rivaled. Each dish had a selected corner of the entire flavor map and wandered to the recesses of it. The flavors here can't be rivaled even by restaurants that use meat and marrow and animal fat to deliver the deep and diverse flavor profiles. Noma is crushing them using only vegetables.
The beauty of each dish was also a sight to behold. I wish I got a better picture of that salad (the 2nd course) which was shockingly beautiful. The beetroot laid out as a flower, or the actual flower fried to perfection while (somehow) keeping each flower petal intact. Who does this??
Noma is a very relaxed atmosphere. There is nothing stuffy or snooty about this place. The restaurant feels more like a rustic wood barn than anything highbrow. There is barely a sign to the place. Most walk by never knowing that's Noma. It underscores both Danish sensibilities (deferential and humble) as well as the inner confidence a place like this has. It doesn't need to announce who it is. Those who need to know already know.
The pacing was steady. Quick, even. It was never rushed, but each next dish arrived at the earliest it could without making you feel unready for it. There were some odd service misses. All of the juices dripped all over when poured from their bottles (each time ably cleaned by the server). I went to the restroom and came back to find the next round of juice/wine already served. That's a no-no in this world. But the staff was friendly, accessible, attentive and helpful.
It's difficult to call out specific dishes here for two reasons. First, this was a cohesive meal that played as a whole. Any one of these dishes on its own would lose something if it was not found in the arc of this menu. The other reason is that each dish was just so damn delicious in such a myriad of flavor profiles, how do you choose one over the other? My favorites were the doma, the mushroom steak and the mochi dessert. None of that is put any other dish down. It's simply dishes that fit my palette. Others at my table raved about the artichoke. Yep, it too was world-class.
I'm jealous of my 3 European-based table-mates, each of whom can pop over to Copenhagen without much effort to enjoy another meal here. I can't imagine it would ever get old.
"Noma" is shorthand for two words: "Nordic" and "Food". René Redzepi (the owner and head chef) is clearly a culinary master. You also have to admire the business he oversees. They serve lunch on Saturday (not dinner) and reopen on Tuesday, allowing their staff to have a reasonable work schedule and time at home with family.
Seating was spacious - many more tables could be put into the room we ate in. With the insane demand to eat here, he could drive this restaurant so much harder to generate far greater profits. Kudos for thinking about his staff and assuring their lifestyle health as they work.
I want to come back. I want to try each season. I want to be reminded of this meal and continually inspired by such intense commitment to the highest cuisine. I want to be able to enjoy their next creation(s) and the ones after those. I want to watch these masters work their craft again and again.
You've likely heard of Noma. You probably know its reputation.
It is all true. Every word of it.
Do whatever you must to get here. It is an experience of a lifetime. And one I will never forget.