Noma Kyoto 2024

Dear Friends, Kyoto is calling. 

Noma will return to Ace Hotel Kyoto for a 10-week residency, from October 8th to December 18th.    

During the sakura season in 2023, after many years of traveling and exploring all corners of Japan, our entire staff moved to Japan’s ancient capital, along with their children, spouses, and significant others. It was one of the most fulfilling and creatively electric periods in our team’s history.  

Now, we will have the chance to do it again—but this time, we’ll immerse ourselves in the autumn season, which presents a completely different array of flavors and ingredients. The explosion of reds and golds that define this season is stunning. So, too, are the ingredients synonymous with fall in Japan—wonders that grow in the forest, beautiful seafood, and a variety of game. Working closely with an incredible network of purveyors and artisans, our connection to one of the richest food cultures on earth will only deepen.  

Read the full announcement here.

Noma in Kyoto Magazine

Noma in Kyoto, our first magazine, is our love letter to the city of Kyoto and the surrounding area.⁣ This publication offers readers—from food enthusiasts to anyone curious about Japan—insight into noma’s travels and learnings, and a guide to the remarkable city we got to call home for the spring of 2023. Noma in Kyoto a loving glimpse into our experience, the dishes we created, the people we met, and the journeys we undertook.

A huge thank you to our design partners Ark Journal, NR2154, Ian Bennett, Print by Wind, and to all our contributing artists, photographers and writers.

To Purchase your copy of Noma in Kyoto, please visit our product page here.

We’re going to Kyoto!

Dear friends, 

We are going to Kyoto, Japan. 

For the past two years, we have been studying, traveling and researching the city of Kyoto and the Kansai region – in particular, kaiseki cuisine. This spring, we return to the place where so much of our own journey began.  

I first visited Japan many years ago to study food culture. It was a mind blowing trip full of new impressions and sensations. The most pivotal moment was when I experienced my first tea ceremony. It was a traditional ceremony with many rituals, and as a Westerner sitting for hours in awkward positions I thought to myself: why so much attention for one cup of tea?

With this question, a new world unfolded. A world of Zen Buddhism and Japanese traditions; the art of giving meaning to seemingly unimportant moments, and to discover what can grow from these moments when set with intention and dedication. I learned that this ceremony, once only focused on tea, over time started to include small plates of food. With refinement, this evolved into a kaiseki meal – a selection of dishes prepared with incredible thought and consideration to reflect a particular season. This made me wonder: could the tasting menu we see in the Western world today have its origin in Japan, from the city of Kyoto and kaiseki cuisine? Or put it in a different way—from a cup of tea?

It’s incredibly inspiring for us to have the opportunity to explore this unique tradition in the beautiful city, Kyoto, in the height of sakura season. We can’t wait to soon pack our bags—a group of 95 people, from apprentices to owners—and live in a new corner of the world, to meet new people, learn from a different culture, and see things from a different point of view. Hopefully, on the other side, we can bring back new perspectives and a clearer vision for how to be noma. This trip is also an opportunity for us to travel as a team and shake off the last 2.5 years of the pandemic. We need an adventure, one that will prepare us for our next and greatest transformational journey yet – a new chapter for noma, which will unfold in 2024.

– René Redzepi, October 2022

For more information about our upcoming popup, head to noma.dk/kyoto

Noma 3.0

To continue being noma, we must change.

Dear guests, colleagues, and friends,

Winter 2024 will be the last season of noma as we know it. We are beginning a new chapter; noma 3.0.

In 2025, our restaurant is transforming into a giant lab—a pioneering test kitchen dedicated to the work of food innovation and the development of new flavors, one that will share the fruits of our efforts more widely than ever before.

In this next phase, we will continue to travel and search for new ways to share our work. Is there somewhere we must go in the world to learn? Then we will do a noma pop-up. And when we’ve gathered enough new ideas and flavors, we will do a season in Copenhagen. Serving guests will still be a part of who we are, but being a restaurant will no longer define us. Instead, much of our time will be spent on exploring new projects and developing many more ideas and products.

Our goal is to create a lasting organization dedicated to groundbreaking work in food, but also to redefine the foundation for a restaurant team, a place where you can learn, you can take risks, and you can grow!

We’ve spent the last two years planning, and we’re ready for the next many years of realizing our goal. 

We hope you’ll join us on this new journey. 
 
Thank you! 

René & the noma team

Noma 2.0: Vegetable, Forest, Ocean

Noma 2.0: Vegetable, Forest, Ocean is a deep dive into all that has been brewing in noma’s test kitchen since moving to our new location in 2018. The book includes 200 dishes catalogued with detailed photography and comprehensive descriptions.

This book is a cookbook, but it is not necessarily meant to be cooked from. At noma we constantly return to nature as a primary source of creative inspiration, however, creativity is a unique process for each individual. This book is meant to help catalyze that unique creative spark for each reader. If you do wish to recreate any of the dishes, there is a QR code in the book which will bring you to every detailed recipe exactly as they are used in the kitchen at noma.

Join our team – Senior Front of House

We are looking for a Senior Front of House person to join our wonderful team. This person should have a minimum of 2 – 3 years in a leadership or management role. Adventure and discovery have always been a part of our DNA, and we have a lot of exciting developments on the horizon. We are looking for the right person to be an integral part of this next chapter.

We need you to be professional, positive and curious about everything that goes on in our wonderful industry. We place a huge emphasis on togetherness; one of the main foundations of our team culture. You should hold enough confidence to help every person around you. You strive to make your teammates better than you – you ensure that newcomers do not fall into the mistakes that you have made. You also have the essential drive to surrender yourself every day to the service of our guests, and Smile.

We are also looking for someone willing to make a long-term commitment. If you come here, it is because you know you want to be here for some years. This is important. Once you get here, you will understand that one year is not enough. We can promise you that it is going to be fun, you’ll learn a lot and you will be a part of what we consider to be one of the best teams on the planet: a team that constantly pushes.

If this sounds like you, and you are looking to learn and work in a large and fun team that never stops to challenge itself, send your application to foh@noma.dk.

Introducing restaurant POPL

Dear friends,

It’s happening. The return of the noma burger.

This year we have faced some of the biggest challenges ever in our seventeen years of operating noma, dealing with the effects of the pandemic both at the restaurant and sadly the resulting closure of Restaurant 108, but it also came with a few major highlights. Above all, our summer burger season, when our doors were open for everyone to stop by, with no reservations. It was incredibly gratifying connecting with our neighbors and meeting the whole city out on the sidewalk. Welcoming both Copenhageners and Danes who traveled to visit our restaurant in that period meant a great deal, and we deeply appreciate those who came out to support us – from the bottom of our hearts, thank you.

This experience inspired us to build our new restaurant, POPL; a neighborhood place for everyone to come together. Our menu is simple: burgers – organic Danish beef and vegetarian or vegan patties handmade in the noma fermentation lab – seasonal sides, ice creams and a list of our favorite wines, beers, cocktails and non-alcoholic beverages. We also have a takeaway option so you can bring it home, or sit by the harbor, to eat with your friends and family.

We’ve been working night and day to make POPL into a reality, and we can’t wait to share it with all of you.

Our core team at POPL is a group of noma veterans, both front and back of house, who bring that energy, devotion to craft, attention to detail, and dedication to service, to everything we do. It’s paramount to our team not only to make the most delicious burgers possible, but also to make a product we can stand behind. Since we ended the burger season, we’ve been tweaking our recipes to add that last bit of flavor. We’ve also spent a lot of time and effort looking for some of the most thoughtful producers we can find. Our organic Danish beef comes from three farms located on the west coast of Denmark by Vadehavet, where the cattle roam and graze freely to enrich the existing wildlife and support the health of the soil. We are proud that this ecological approach, and the quality of taste it yields, is the backbone of how we source ingredients at POPL.

See you soon,

René, Stu, Line, James, Peter, and the rest of the POPL team

POPL comes from the Latin word ”populus” meaning community of people, but also refers to poplar wood, which is a nod to our approach and great respect for nature.

Opening date: December 3, 2020

Address: Strandgade 108

Opening hours: Thurs—16.00-22.00, Fri-Sun—12.00-15.00, 16.00-22.00 (plan for additional days in future)

Dining in: we are open for walk-ins, reservations for groups of 6+ via our website.

Takeaway: can be ordered at the door, or via preorder, via our website.

Price: burgers cost 110 kr. takeaway, and 145 kr. in the restaurant

Website: poplburger.com

Press contact: press@poplburger.com

We take every precaution to ensure the health and safety of our guests and staff during this time.

We’re opening a wine bar

PLEASE NOTE: The last day of our wine- and burger-bar was Sunday 21st of June.

Dear friends and guests,

PLEASE NOTE: The last day of our wine- and burger-bar was Sunday 21st of June.

We are incredibly happy to be allowed to reopen the doors of noma, now that restrictions have eased in Denmark.

In this moment, we are eager to connect with our community, and to celebrate summer in the best (and safest) way we can.

Our reopening will happen in two steps.

An outdoor wine bar: The first step is something we are very excited about, because it is completely new for us. On Thursday, May 21^st, at 1pm, we will open an outdoor wine bar in our beautiful gardens at noma, overlooking the lake we share with our neighbors in Christiania. Come as you are, there are no reservations, we are open for everyone. You can stop by for a glass of wine, or you can stay for more, and if you get hungry we have two burgers on the menu: the noma cheeseburger and the noma veggie burger. Both are juicy and packed with umami, with a little bit of magic from our fermentation cellar, served on a freshly baked potato bun developed by our friends at Gasoline Grill.

The wine bar will be open Thursday – Sunday. We will open at 1pm and close between 7-9pm depending on the weather, no reservations. There will also be an option for take away Thursday – Sunday (both wine and food), orders accepted at the door. Preorders for 10 or more burgers are accepted no later than 10.00 the day of, via burger@noma.dk. Pick up times for preorders will be from 12.45 to 17.00.

The official reopening of noma: Secondly, in order to open noma, the restaurant as we know it, we will need some extra time to get the machine up and running again. Being closed for so long means that it will take weeks for our team to get the kitchen back to the levels we were at before closing. We do not yet have an official opening date for the restaurant to share, but we will have more information on this very soon. As a result, we are not currently able to accept new reservations. However, for those of you who have an existing reservation with us through September, and those who generously purchased a prepayment voucher, we will be in touch with you directly as soon as we finalize the details of this next phase. If you wish to be of the first updated, please sign up for our newsletter and follow us on social media.

Lastly, ensuring the health and safety of our guests and staff is of the utmost importance, so we will be following all guidelines and requirements from our government and taking strict precautions in every step of the process.

We can’t wait to share our space with you, see you soon.

All the best,
René and the noma team

“When the cannons are heard, the muses are silent”

“When the cannons are heard, the muses are silent”

Ben Liebmann
April 20th, 2020

As many of you have seen, the Danish Government has recently introduced a number of emergency measures to support our community during these unprecedented and challenging times. This includes a number of programs to help protect the most affected Danish workers and companies during the months ahead.

Our local Copenhagen restaurant community has been amongst the most impacted by this crisis.

Unlike many other industries, very few if any independent restaurant has the luxury of keeping money for a rainy day. Independent restaurants are by and large cash-flow businesses, operating on the tightest of margins and with nearly all money going to pay employees, suppliers, utility providers and landlords.

Without guests, restaurants have no money,

Here at noma, we are able to access the Government’s extraordinary support. This, combined with the continued support of our partners as well as the generosity of our friends and guests, will give our restaurant the best possible chance to survive, and our entire team a livelihood until we are able to reopen.

Yet at the same time, many of our friends and peers around the world are facing desperate and challenging times.

Over the past month, thousands and thousands of independent restaurants around the world have closed. These restaurants represent somebody’s life’s work, or even newly opened hopes and dreams.

With these closures have gone millions of jobs – from cooks and waiters, sommeliers, dishwashers and cleaners, managers and office workers. And as part of our broader food system, so too have the jobs of many more – farmers, fishermen, winemakers – all who depend on restaurants for their own living.

Around the world, these people are part of one community.

They are passionate, creative and incredibly talented.

They are all of our family, our friends and our neighbours.

We stand together with them, as one, during what will no doubt be the greatest challenge our industry has ever faced.

With the support of the Danish Government, restaurants like noma have a fighting chance – a chance to reopen, a chance to welcome back our guests, and a chance to do what we do best.

But for many around the world, they do not yet have this chance.

On behalf of all of them – on behalf of all of us – please lend a hand in any way you can.

Independent restaurants reflect, and are a reflection of, the community around them.

As described by Jeff Gordinier (‘The Trump Administration Is Writing a Death Sentence for America’s Most Important Restaurants‘), “great restaurants turn sleepy corners into hubs of activity. From city to city, the restaurant revolution has been a revolution in consciousness. These restaurants offer the green-state-ish idea that there’s a different way to use the land, and they serve as a reminder that there is an infinitude of American stories to be told about community and fellowship.”

Please support independent restaurants.

Please continue to make reservations for the future or buy gift cards. Please continue to order takeaway or delivery directly (not via the predatory apps) from your local favourites.

Please continue supporting groups like the Independent Restaurant Coalition.

And please contact your own government representatives to ask for their support in helping restaurants around the world reopen.

In the last financial crisis, governments around the world bailed out companies that were considered “too big to fail”. Independent restaurants, as chef David Chang has previously noted, are “too small to fail”. When considering their vital role in our local and global communities and economies, there are also “too many to fail”.

Sustained government support will be vital for the survival of independent restaurants – and not just the homogeneous chains – in the long and difficult months ahead, and calls to representatives can make a difference.
Every little thing counts and will help our global restaurant community rebuild and get back on its feet. And when it does, every one of us will welcome you back with open arms.

Thank you to everyone around the world for their friendship and support.

Take care of one another.

Ben Liebmann
Chief Operating Officer

(Note: The title of this piece is a reference to the Truman Capote book ‘The Muses Are Heard‘, which in turn comes from a speech given by a former staff member of the Soviet cultural ministry, who declared, “When the cannons are heard, the muses are silent. When the cannons are silent, the muses are heard.”)

Photo by Rasmus Hjortshøj

Dear colleagues and friends,

I am writing to let you know some very exciting news.

It has been seventeen years since I began my work at noma and it’s been an incredible run so far. I’ve been able to work with some of the best people in our industry – managers, cooks, sous chefs, sommeliers, dishwashers and partners who have all contributed to our success and what this restaurant has become. We recently moved to our new home, and this move is just one of many seeds we have been planting for the future of noma.

Over the past 6 years, my investment partner and friend, Marc Blazer, has played a key role in our journey from one location on the docks of Christianshavn, to a business with interests in multiple restaurants in Copenhagen and even in Tokyo, as well as the further development of the non-profit MAD foundation into an institution in our industry.

I am happy to share, and grateful to Marc, that he has now helped us engineer a way for me and the team to own our own business, by selling Overture’s shares to us. This will be the first time that I will become majority owner of this project that has become my life’s work, and today involves my entire family and many who I now consider family.

As a result, the next chapter of noma will be about giving back to this extended family and bringing them even closer to the business. It will also be about continuing to work with friends and former team members whose own projects we have been lucky enough to be a part of.

Marc and I are excited about this new chapter for noma and for me, and I can’t thank him enough for enabling what will be an exciting future.

Thank you for all of the support, it’s been seventeen years and yet, we are at a fresh beginning.

Best,
René Redzepi

Looking waiters to join our FOH team

We are looking for waiters to join our FOH team. Are you interested….?

Right now is one of the most exciting times for our restaurant.

After only just re opening in our new home, the team is expanding, and we are looking for ambitious and fun people to join the family, in our Front of House team, to be a part of figuring out our new space and helping set the tone and pace for the years to come. We are on a new adventure, and moving forward.

We need you to be professional, positive and curious about everything that goes on in our wonderful industry. We place a huge emphasis on togetherness; one of the main foundations of our team culture. You should hold enough confidence to help every person around you. You strive to make your teammates better than you – you ensure that newcomers do not fall into the mistakes that you have made. You also have the essential drive to surrender yourself every day to the service of our guests, and Smile.

Furthermore, you have a basic understanding of wine and beverages in general. You also know the basics about food – the rest we will teach you if you are eager enough. The perfect candidate has had a few years of experience, has been educated, speaks fluent English, and preferably one more language.

If you choose to apply here, don’t do so if you are only looking for a short-term adventure. If you come here, it is because you know you want to be here for some years. This is important. Once you get here, you will understand that one year is not enough. We can promise you that it is going to be fun, you’ll learn a lot and you will be a part of what we consider to be one of the best teams on the planet: a team that constantly pushes.

We too have travelled the world together, taking our team and their families to incredible places, to learn and apply our way of doing things in other places. To take that into consideration, you can be sure we will travel again someday.

Up for the challenge? Please email foh@noma.dk with your CV and letter of motivation. We look forward to hearing from you!

*Unfortunately, due to Danish immigration laws, only citizens of the European Union (EU) will be eligible to apply for this position.

Reservations at the new noma

Dear guests,

We’re so excited to announce that we are ready to open noma again, beginning in February 2018.

As we’ve mentioned in the past, we’ll be dividing our year into three seasons, during which the menu will change dramatically to match the type of ingredients that are at their peak at any given time of the year.

Our opening menu will celebrate Scandinavian seafood, which is at its absolute best during the cold, winter months. Each serving on the menu will include some element from the ocean. Please keep this in mind when booking a table. If you have an aversion or allergy to any foods from the ocean, or adhere to a vegetarian or vegan diet, please join us during one of our other two seasons:

• Vegetable season, from early summer to early fall. This menu is perfect for vegetarians and vegans and will make full use of our urban garden. Our foragers will also be working overtime to maximize the time of the year when the plant kingdom reigns supreme.
• Game and forest season, from early fall to January. This is the only period of the year when meat will play a starring role at restaurant noma. During this season, we’ll pay homage to the animals and things that grow from the forest: berries, mushrooms, nuts, and wild plants, along with the bounty of the harvest season.

Reservations will open: 16 November, 4pm local time in Copenhagen (CET)

Booking window: 15 February – 29 April 2018

To book: https://noma.dk/reservations/

Our new restaurant has 40 seats in the dining room, and we’ll be serving lunch and dinner, Wednesday through Saturday.

Tables will be available for parties of 2, 4, 6, or 8 and will require prepayment of the menu.

For parties greater than 8 people, we will also have a private dining room available with a maximum capacity of 16 guests. To book, please contact us via email at booking@noma.dk.

A shared table will also be offered on occasion. Please sign up for the shared table waiting list if interested, and we will contact guests as they become available.

For more information on booking process and cancellation policy, please see: https://noma.dk/reservations/

We hope to see you soon!

René and the noma team

noma 2.0 bookings

Dear friends,

What a year it has been so far. We closed noma on Strandgade, did a popup in Mexico, have popped-up under a bridge in Copenhagen and travelled around Scandinavia in search of products and inspiration for our menu at noma 2.0. In the meantime, we’ve been planning every other detail of the new space from the spoons to the staff locker room. The building is starting to take shape, its foundation has been laid, and the walls are up.

For our new menu, you may have heard that we are changing our format to work even more closely with seasonality. In the cold months when few things grow, high season is in the oceans. Weird shells, deep water seaweed, the eyeball of a cod, slivers of fresh lobster – we’re not sure yet what we will serve, but it is certain that the menu will be based around seafood. Also on the menu will be the foods that we have been preserving from this spring, summer and autumn and of course the winter agricultural staples of our region.

The seafood season this time will be from February to May.

We will be open from Wednesday to Saturday, offering the same menu for both lunch and dinner.

We are excited to let you know that we will be opening for bookings for noma 2.0 on Thursday, the 16th of November at 4:00pm local Copenhagen time (CET).

Please sign up for our newsletter to stay up to date with all information regarding the booking process and final details of our opening in the next few weeks.

Lastly, we would like to remind you about our popup currently running under the Knipplesbro Bridge in Copenhagen. Open for only 6 more weeks! Book for Under the Bridge here.

best wishes,

René and the noma team

Check out the video for a little update from us on our most recent travels as we prepare for the opening of noma 2.0.

Popup Under the Bridge!

Dear friends,

Here is an update of what’s going on. Noma 2.0 is still on track to open in December. We’re working hard to keep our deadlines. The creative team is currently traveling through the Nordic region to meet all of our friends and collaborators, and to seek out new ones. The rest of the team, about 30 of them, will be opening their own popup restaurant in Copenhagen.

The sous chefs and restaurant managers have joined forces to create an outdoor, family style, open fire restaurant. Our team is from all parts of the world; will this influence our menu? It certainly will. They are going to serve the freshest food of the day cooked how they want to, not necessarily how it would be at noma. The essence of it is that while we are waiting for the new noma to open, the noma staff will be collaborating on a menu of simple delicious food that they would eat themselves on a summer night.

It will be in collaboration with our old friends and wine suppliers, Rosforth & Rosforth in their outdoor space, under Knippelsbro Bridge. Please don’t expect Michelin star seating. Of course the weather in Copenhagen can be unreliable but don’t worry about that, it is covered and we have taken the necessary measures to ensure that our guests will be dry and warm.

The popup will open on the 19th of July and will run through to the 3rd of September from Wednesday to Sunday. We offer a fixed menu inclusive of alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks.

We will also have a wine bar that will be open from 2pm each day Wednesday – Sunday, so you’re welcome to come early before your reservation, stick around after, or just stop by for a few drinks with out a reservation. (Please note that drinks at the wine bar are not included in the ticket price).

Tickets are on sale here.

We can’t wait for you to join us under the bridge!

Warmly,

The noma team and Rosforth & Rosforth

Knippelsbrogade 10

1409 København K

Introducing Restaurant Barr!

Dear friends,

For years, I have been talking with René about creating a new kind of restaurant in Copenhagen. We have been holding out for the perfect space – and we finally found it, inside the old home of noma on the city’s iconic waterfront. Together in partnership we are opening restaurant Barr, on Wednesday, 5^th July.

Barr will not be another Nordic restaurant. Rather, it will draw from the eating and drinking traditions of the North Sea; an area that spans Scandinavia, Benelux and the British Isles. The name Barr is an old Irish word for “crops” and an old Nordic word for “barley,” a staple throughout this stretch of Europe, and, of course, one of the foundations of beer. Barr will celebrate this diverse region’s cold-country cooking, its breweries, and its shared devotion to conviviality.

The cooking of this region has always fascinated me – from classic dishes like the humble frikadeller (Danish meatballs) and schnitzel, to the use of marmite in cooking in Britain. At Barr, we will serve familiar foods in the best way we can, building on the last decade’s gastronomic development in Copenhagen. We want to carry on the spirit of experimentation and knowledge, serving our versions of traditional dishes, along with a great selection of beers and aquavit from this extraordinary area.

We want Barr to be welcoming, comfortable, and delicious, a place you’ll visit regularly with your family and friends.

We hope to see you soon!

Thorsten Schmidt & the Barr team

The menu will be a la carte and will change with the seasons.

The restaurant seats 60, with an additional 30 seat bar.

Barr will be open for dinner from Wednesday to Saturday, and lunch Friday to Sunday. From August 6^th, the restaurant will introduce its special Sunday lunch menu, designed to share, and bringing families and friends together.

Reservations are now open at the Barr website: restaurantbarr.com.

Barr
Strandgade 93, Copenhagen
Website: restaurantbarr.com
Phone: +45 32963293
General Press:hej@restaurantbarr.com

Follow us on social media:
Instagram: @barrcph
Facebook: facebook.com/barrcph
Twitter: @restaurantbarr

A bar menu to support the Mundo Maya Foundation

Dear friends,

We are now settled into our residency here in Mexico and have a few weeks of service under our belt. Much of our success so far is attributed to the people from all over Mexico who have helped us finalize every detail, material and the produce we need for our restaurant. Many of these people have become our friends, including the Mundo Maya Foundation (Fundación Haciendas del Mundo Maya).

Mundo Maya works for the sustainable social and economic development of Mayan communities in the Yucatan Peninsula. Their focus is on promoting the quality and tradition of the work of local producers and master artisans. We have sourced a great deal of produce and crafts through the Mundo Maya – everything from tomatoes, corn and pumpkin to napkins, cup holders and serving baskets. We know our relationship with the Mundo Maya will continue well beyond our time here in Tulum. For us, this is the first chapter in a very long collaboration.

For that reason, we have spent the last couple of weeks also honing in on a menu for our bar. This is our chance to serve a few more guests, and an opportunity to give a little back to Mundo Maya.

From Wednesday the 3^rd of May, we will be opening up our bar. There will be only 12 seats available each night. The menu costs $100, $90 of that will go directly to our friends at Mundo Maya, which will be channeled to support the producers and craftspeople themselves.

Practical information to know about the walk-in bar

• We are open from Wednesday to Sunday (Closed Mondays and Tuesdays. Please note that we will also be closed on May 20th. Our last bar menu service will take place on Sunday, May 21st)
• The bar menu is $100 for five servings consisting of four savory courses, one dessert and beverages (price excludes 25% tax and service).
• We welcome guests to line up each day at 12pm out in front of the restaurant on the wooden boardwalk
  • Please note that we may start processing tickets as soon as the line reaches 12 people which might occur before 12pm
• The first 12 present in line will buy their ticket, and will then come back at 5:45pm for the start of service
• Please note that each person can only buy one seat for his or herself, and must be physically present in line
• Tickets are non-transferrable
• Bar service runs between 5:45pm and 7:15pm each evening; the serving starts promptly at 5:45pm for all 12 guests
• We accept cash and credit (all cards accepted)
• We are only able to accommodate the following dietary restrictions: vegetarian, pescetarian, gluten-free and lactose-free

We look forward to welcoming you!

All the best,

René Redzepi & Rosio Sanchez

Noma Mexico: the building site

Dear friends,

This week we want to share a bit about the process of designing and building our restaurant in the jungle.

It truly is jungle. About 50 meters from the water begins a thick dense landscape. Full of animals; birds of all colors and sizes, snakes, caimans and even jaguars. There is no existing infrastructure at all, no plumbing electricity or water – we are bringing all of that in. In this post we are going to share with you small snippets from the people who are helping to make all of this possible. Currently there are more than 3 dozen people at the building site laying the floors of the restaurant and finding space for a roof among the palm trees.

We have the opportunity to partner with Colibri Boutique Hotels, who are providing us the land and helping us build our restaurant just behind one of their beachside hotels. Over the years, and with family and friends, we have stayed at La Zebra and gotten to know the owner John, his family, and his team. We have spent a lot of time on the beach thinking about how we might be able to create something together.

We have partnered with a group of local architects, designers, builders and artisans to create a restaurant that reflects the spirit of the area, whilst keeping a sense of Noma.

La Metropolitana is a young Mexican design company based out of Mexico City that is helping us to develop some of the larger aspects of the space such as structural elements and furniture. They are collaborating with a Tulum based firm called Studio Arquitectos, who are actually working on the ground to carry out their designs. La Metropolitana draws inspiration from a mixture of Mexican concepts surrounding street food and Mexico’s traditional markets. Some of the market’s most characteristic elements like the open plan and a partially covered roof will define the space. This concept fits well with our desire to maintain a key element of Noma: its open kitchen. This provides guests and chefs the opportunity to see what is happening both in and outside of the kitchen.

Cecilia León de la Barra, a designer based in Mexico City, is on board working to bridge our identity with the design and tradition of Mexico. She is helping us to source pieces from the local craftspeople and fine tune all of the smaller design features in the restaurant such as lighting, tableware and decorations that will help build the atmosphere.

One new thing that we’ve never worked with before is the comal, which is a traditional way of making tortillas. Four chefs from the little community of Yaxunah have requested this to be included in our kitchen design. Not only are they growing all of the Naal Teel corn themselves, but they will also themselves be working with us in the restaurant to help make our tortillas and to teach us.

This is the first time that we have taken on the process of building a full space from the ground up. It sure has been challenging and at times interesting, like that one time a snake fell from above onto Rosio’s foot! But, it has been a rewarding process so far working with all of the people responsible for everything from the plumbing, to the walls, to the salt bowls and forks. We can’t wait to see the space once every detail is in place, and truly look forward to sharing it with you!

See you soon,

René Redzepi & Rosio Sanchez

Our restaurant is situated under the canopy of the jungle and across the road from the beach and La Zebra hotel. Our partners at Colibri have a small allocation of tables which are still available for guests who purchase a special accommodation package, so if you missed out on a reservation the first time around, this is another chance to book a table with us. For more information please visit: http://www.colibriboutiquehotels.com/noma-accommodation-package/

Science bunker creations for Noma Mexico

Dear friends,

This week we would like to update you on a bit of what goes on in our fermentation lab as we prepare our menu for Noma Mexico.

Fermented foods play a definitive role in our menu in Copenhagen. Fermentation is a way of thinking about the possibilities of ingredients, and the approach we use at Noma can be applied all over the world. Using Noma’s lens, we have applied our methods of fermentation to the ingredients of Japan and Australia – Noma Mexico will certainly be no different.

Fermentation is a significant element of food culture in Mexico, but the traditional processes that we have encountered are very different to our own. It’s thrilling to take the same ingredients used in traditional Mexican cooking and transform them into something novel. There is an explosion of possibility when we apply our processes to the ingredients of a new culture and landscape.

We will be treating many of the ingredients in Mexico the same way we do here in Copenhagen. For example, we use koji, a fungus traditionally used to ferment rice and soybeans when making soy sauce and miso, to create many of our own unique ferments such as peaso (a miso made from yellow peas instead of soybeans). We drew inspiration from a process steeped in Japanese history and used it to transform a very Danish ingredient, peas, into something completely new.

Similarly, we will grow koji on Mexican rice to transform some of the raw ingredients we discovered in Mexico to create new ferments; a pantry of flavors specific to Noma Mexico. This is what we truly love the most about fermentation; the ablity to create genuine moments of surprise, as you taste things you’ve never tasted before.

The possibilities are endless in terms of how these ferments could be used on our menu: sauces, marinades, soups, even ice creams. We still don’t know exactly how they’ll come to life, or even if they’ll all fit in, but we’re just too excited to not share a small peek into the fermentations of Noma Mexico.

These chapulines are the same type of grasshopper as the giant one that landed on Thomas’s nose. Pictured here, you see them as they are when we buy them from the market in Oaxaca: boiled, then pan roasted with garlic, chili and lime. They’re crunchy, a bit picante from the chili and delicious straight from the bowl.

We prepare these Mexican grasshoppers exactly the same way as the Danish ones that we use to make our grasshopper garum. They are blended with rice koji, then placed in the heat to slowly breakdown with the enzymes produced by the koji. The enzymes snip the proteins into delicious free amino acids for a mouth-smacking and moreish flavor. The fermented chapulines turn into a dark, rich paste; savory and complex, pleasantly salty like soy sauce and still retains the heat of the chilies.

These red worms, or gusano de maguey, pictured here vivid red when fresh, and a warm orange once baked. Slightly fatty and sweet, the worms have a rounded taste reminiscent of roasted Jerusalem artichokes. We process the baked guasano de maguey the same way we do the chapulines. The result is similar in appearance, though slightly lighter in color and texture. Its smell draws the mind to Mexico with notes of chocolate and molé.

Here we see the beautiful gem-like kernels of Mexican blue corn. First we make masa out of the dried kernels by cooking and soaking them with lime (calcium hydroxide, not the citrus) and grinding them. We mix the masa with rice koji and salt and allow it to ferment for a couple months. The result is an incredibly fragrant, tropically fruity, sweet and delicious soft mash.

We’ve made spin-offs of the fermented masa with achiote, cocoa and cascara, each with its own character.

The black bean miso is perhaps the subtlest of our Mexican ferments; soft and satisfying from the beans with a light sweetness from the koji.

Our Pepita miso, made of heavily roasted pumpkin seeds mixed with koji, is toasty, with a nice bite and mild fermented flavor.

We of course are experimenting in other ways besides rice koji fermentations. One “rabbit out of a hat” as the head of our fermentation bunker, David Zilber, humbly puts it, is habanero vinegar. A puree of habaneros and vinegar is distilled and ends up as an incredibly delicious and delicate vinegar that smells peppery and floral and tastes green and fresh with none of the heat. For a look at this process, check out the video clip on our Instagram: @nomacph!

We hope this peek into the fermentation bunker gets you excited for the flavors of Noma Mexico! Stay tuned for more…

All the best,

René Redzepi & Rosio Sanchez