One of the world’s most creative restaurants, which has been awarded three Michelin stars and has added ingredients such as Finnish reindeer moss, veal fiber and live ants to the menu, is set to close its doors at the end of 2023, the owner has announced.
Rene Redzepi, 45, is widely regarded as one of the world’s best chefs and thanks to his culinary alchemy, Noma has been voted the world’s best restaurant five times – and lunch with wine pairing currently costs 5,500 Danish kroner, around £653.
He said his flagship restaurant in Copenhagen, which first opened in 2003, will become a giant test kitchen called Noma 3.0 in 2024 – opening for short periods only in 2025.
In an interview with The New York Times, he said the “unsustainable” nature of the global fine dining scene — which requires long hours in the kitchen and meticulously high standards — coupled with the pandemic, helped him close the shop.
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A post on Instagram this week read, “To continue being Noma, we must change…Winter 2024 will be the final season of Noma as we know it.”
In a fan Q&A session on his own page, he admitted it was daunting to turn his hugely successful business, which employed full-time collectors, gardeners and researchers to inspire new dishes, into an advanced food laboratory.
He said he’s spent the last two years planning the announcement, saying: “It’s scary and weird, but I know it’s the right thing to do. When the pandemic hit, I felt like it was time for something different.”
Currently in Tokyo, where a Noma pop-up restaurant will open for five months, the acclaimed chef said he is looking to the future.
Acclaimed chef and Noma owner Rene Redzepi announced this week that the three-Michelin-star restaurant will close at the end of 2023
Creative: Dishes have included ingredients such as Finnish reindeer moss and live ants over the years (pictured: grilled crayfish and crayfish heads)
His Copenhagen restaurant will instead become a giant test kitchen dubbed Noma 3.0, opening in 2025 and only serving for a short time each year
In an interview with The New York Times, Redzepi said the global fine dining scene is “unsustainable”.
Noma 3.0 will be “focused on innovation, understanding of nature and human growth,” he told fans on Instagram
“It gives us a chance to do some really amazing work over the next two to three decades.”
Noma 3.0 will be “focused on innovation, understanding of nature and human growth,” he told fans.
He said the kitchen will open in 2025 and that his staff are “nervous” like him, but he hasn’t “heard from anyone who doesn’t think that’s the right move.”
In 2021, the Copenhagen restaurant took home first place in the World’s 50 Best Restaurants Awards, while Danish restaurant Geranium became number one in 2022. Noma previously topped the list in 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2014.
The latest news is the third incarnation of Noma. In 2017, the restaurant closed its original location near the Danish capital’s Opera House and reopened in Copenhagen’s hippie district of Christiania.
In 2021, the Copenhagen restaurant took first place in the World’s 50 Best Restaurants Awards, while Danish restaurant Geranium became number one in 2022
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