I put a note in my calendar to start calling at 10:00 am on August 2nd when the booking for November opened. After an hour of constant busy signals and redials, I actually got through! I was lucky to not have just hung up again as my thumb had gotten into a routine by then. I called a couple of my friends who had been informed of the theoretical plan and who immediately fell into shock upon the news that we actually had a table booked (very convenient for my birthday to fall on a Saturday this year).
That is the story of how, on November 6, six of us from various places in Sweden converged in Copenhagen for our culinary adventure (and for my birthday, although I’m sure that was of secondary importance).
Five of us a taxi from the Savoy Hotel where we were staying and #6 came directly from Malmö, Sweden (on the other side of the water from Copenhagen). One of us had asked the hotel concierge for help ordering a taxi and apparently he had become very excited upon hearing our destination. The taxi driver was also eager to wish us well. I guess everyone in Copenhagen is excited about this place. Never mind that on the way we started to wonder if he was driving us to the remotest destination on Christiania (a region of Copenhagen) to murder us, but no, we eventually saw two torches in the darkness which we correctly assumed to be marking the entrance to the restaurant.
Entrance Pic
This picture was taken later in the evening after the torches had died out.
Our reservation was for 6:30 pm and we arrived a few minutes early. Turns out they open at 6:30 and were slightly put off about the idea of letting us in early as they were still preparing (never mind that it was windy and freezing outside). We were, however, not the only ones who arrived early (you’d think they’d be prepared for this by now or stop booking tables for the exact opening time). Anyway, we were escorted to the bar/lounge area where we recovered from the cold and decided what aperitif to order.
Bar/Lounge Area
I spy with my little eye something interesting in the corner!
By the time we decided on what to drink, our table was ready so we sat down and enjoyed our bottle of champagne (I remember it was a Pinot Noir, but not the vintner).
Table Setting
Then the finger foods started to arrive. The concept of presenting small plates (two or three people’s snacks per plate) or tins was interesting, but the logistics became a bit confusing and the table crowded. It probably works best for up to four people.
Moss and cep
Eat only the lichen together with some créme fraîche sauce; good but hard to eat as it crumbles apart.
Fried leek and garlic
Take a bite off the bottom (the bottom of the leek is cooked and the roots deep-fried with garlic).
Cookie with lardo and currant - not very interesting.
Seabuck thorn leather and pickled hip roses
I thought this was very good. It tasted a lot like roses smell.
Rye bread, chicken skin, broad beans and smoked cheese (?)
I honestly have no idea if this is correct, but whatever it was, it wasn’t very interesting. I am trying to match the menu to the pictures, but I know there was at least one change on the menu. Also, sorry if some of the pictures are blurry (dark restaurant, dark subject matter, no flash).
What is inside?
Pickled and smoked quail’s egg
Almost an adult Kinder Surprise. The egg white had a bizarrely rubbery consistency and the yolk was nice and runny and warm.
Radish and carrot, soil and herbs
Freshly planted veggies. Everything was edible, even the (hazelnut) dirt and the herb cream underneath. The herb cream was very good and had a light consistency. The dirt had an obvious visual function, but detracted from the taste.
Toast, herbs, scallop coral and vinegar (?)
Again, I’m not sure. I just remember that the top was basically skimmings off the top of a duck broth that they’d turned into a wafer. It was very good (probably my favorite snack).
Once there was something in our empty stomachs besides champagne, the restaurant became more interesting to look at. We were sitting in the middle of the room between the drink stations. It’s basically modern Scandinavian décor in a rustic setting (most likely an old warehouse considering the location). Panning from my right to my left…
Entrance area
Kitchen
Don’t worry, it’s just an illusion. Morgan’s eyes can’t actually be open in a picture. I have years of empirical testing to prove it!
Now what we came for (and you thought it was for my birthday) – the ”nassaaq” 12-course tasting menu. What’s the point of ordering anything less?
Note: As the wines accompanying a large majority of the dishes were all white and German (and as it is not specified on the menu which wine went with which particular course - sometimes one wine bridged over two courses), I am having difficulties remembering all the wine pairings. Unfortunately no one else seems to remember either. So, when it is unclear, I will put a (?) before the wine and include the possible alternative.
But wait, warm, yummy spelt bread in it’s own bread cozy to keep it warm. Believe me, it was hard not to fill up on this, especially with the sheep’s milk butter, which outshone the Danish classic ”fett med lök” (fat with onions). I want more of that butter!!!
Grilled salad – fresh hazelnut
2008 Kerner trocken, Klaus Zimmerling, Sachsen
I found this completely uninteresting. It was basically raw nuts.
Sea urchin and grilled cucumber – cream and dill
2008 Kerner trocken, Klaus Zimmerling, Sachsen
A cold dish; the white is “snow” made out of cream. The cucumber really came through.
Tatar and sorrel – tarragon and juniper
2007 Riesling Berg Roseneck, Georg Breuer, Rheingau
More finger food. This was quite good.
Langoustine and sol – parsley and seawater
(?) 2009 Riesling Smaragd, Laurenliushof, Mosel
(?) 2007 Riesling Berg Roseneck, Georg Breuer, Rheingau
Even more finger food. This was very good, one of our favorites. The stone was warm and it made the dish actually smell like a warm stone. The langoustine just melted in your mouth and the green dots of sauce were gelled enough to pick up.
Time to supervise the kitchen activities…
Also time to check out the other important facilities. (ha, you thought I’d forgotten this time!)
Back to “work”…
Oyster and the ocean
2009 Riesling Smaragd, Laurenliushof, Mosel
The pot, rocks, and shells (and seaweed hidden underneath) had been heated up so this dish smelled like the ocean.
Potato and milk skin – lovage and whey
(?) 2008 Auxerrois 350 N.N, Odinstal, Pfalz
(?) 2009 Riesling Smaragd, Laurenliushof, Mosel
As I am not Scandinavian, I was not fascinated by last year’s potatoes that had resprouted in the field (although others were), but the sprouts tasted very peppery.
Celeriac and black truffle – garden sorrel
2008 Auxerrois 350 N.N, Odinstal, Pfalz
I believe I said that I wanted to take a bath in this sauce and then lick it off myself. That was the closest they got to “sex on a plate” (see The Fat Duck post for the origins of this phrase), although this dish was more like a really great kiss. Black truffle from Gotland.
The hen and the egg
2000 Sekt Riesling trocken, Stein, Mosel
Part 1: Receive a plate of herbs, greens, and butter.
Part II: See the timer and understand what that annoying, intermittent beeping sound has been.
Part III: Get a 285C skillet and crack an egg on it. Salt your egg.
Part IV: Add the herbs from the left side of the plate.
Part V: Get a nice Swedish Västerbotten cheese sauce poured over everything.
Part VI: Put on the rest of the greens and eat!
Wild duck and apple – malt and browned butter
2007 Spätburgunder, Becker Landgraf, Reinhessen
The roasted apple seeds were yummy and the most memorable part of this dish. They were one of the things talked about the day after.
Pear tree!
1993 Riesling Auslese “Ürziger Würtzgarten”, Karl Erbes, Mosel
Grilled pear with fluff that tasted how a Christmas tree smells. This was my favorite dessert and probably my favorite dish overall (although I do want more langoustine, and sauce, and roasted apple seeds…) This was also the most interesting wine pairing. The wine basically neutralized all other flavors except for the tree.
A bunch of 285C skillets can really heat up a place! Time for a walk.
Restaurant
They look like they’re enjoying themselves, even without me!
The opera house
View of Copenhagen
Jerusalem artichoke and marjoram – apple and malt
(?) 1993 Riesling Auslese “Ürziger Würtzgarten”, Karl Erbes, Mosel
(?) 1976 Riesling Beerenauslese, Basting-Gimbel, Rheingau
Not very interesting although very fresh.
Walnut ice cream with dried berries and cream
1976 Riesling Beerenauslese, Basting-Gimbel, Rheingau
This was the definite change to the printed menu (instead of Brown cheese and beetroot) and I think I’m probably glad. The walnut ice cream was very good with more cream “snow”. Although it was an interesting wine, I do not think it paired so well with the food.
After dinner it was time to head back to the bar/lounge area for coffee, tea, avec and mignardises.
A tin with...
the equivalent of chocolate-covered potato chips. Nothing special in my opinion.
A package with...
bones?
They were actual bones with a sweet and salty pork-tasting solid jelly inside, which you had to poke out with your finger. I liked these.
A Christmas tin with...
the high-end equivalent of Swedish mums-mums (basically gooey marshmallow covered with chocolate). Personally I found them too sour.
Avec
Poire Williams for me and a black currant eau-de-vie for Jeannette. The black currant smell was amazing!
So, is Noma the best restaurant in the world? A resounding “no”. And please do not ask me how this restaurant managed to bump The Fat Duck down to third place because I have no idea.
Is Noma the best restaurant in the world that is following the absolute latest trend (local food) in this business? Perhaps, although I have not tried another restaurant that takes this concept to such an extreme as Noma does.
Frantzén-Lindeberg in Stockholm also knows the local origins of all their food (mostly Swedish), but is willing to bring in ingredients from other regions.
(If you’re curious, this rating is based on a poll of 837 experts, each who cast seven votes for their favorite restaurants that they have dined at during the last 18 months. I have eaten at two of the current top three on the list (Noma, Fat Duck), and five of the current top 21 (also Per Se, Le Bernardin, Steirereck).)
Regarding Noma’s two-star Michelin rating, do they deserve two stars? Probably, but they definitely do not deserve three. That bar is set high for a reason, and Noma has not been able to pass it. Their menu was uneven with some rather low points (which I hinted at above). The wine pairings were fine, but nothing amazing. The timing of the courses could have been improved as there were large gaps at times (large enough to start wondering what was going on) and almost no gaps other times. Also, their service left something to be desired (as is unfortunately the general case in Scandinavia).
Regarding the service, the way the staff ran around detracted from a more relaxed atmosphere. They were too focused on quickly moving food out of the kitchen to do it in a subtle way. At times we were not informed of what we were eating and/or drinking and I had to specifically ask for information about this more than once (and these lapses were not just due to logistics, which is perhaps more understandable even if not excusable).
Besides the water glasses being kept full, I actually found the staff, once we were past the lounge, to be rather inattentive. Normally at such restaurants, if you catch a staff member’s eye, they immediately come and find out what you want. Also, it is never difficult to do this as they are keeping an eye open for such things. At Noma, they actually managed to avoid eye contact (I know everyone has been to a restaurant where the staff has this amazing “skill”). Twice I actually got tired from the effort of twisting my head around and around trying to catch someone’s eye and gave up, and once I even had to put my hand up to flag someone down (and remember we were sitting in the middle of the room). This is completely inexcusable at such a level, and our table was even in between the drink stations.
At the end I felt as though we were being herded out. For example, they informed us that they were calling us a cab, and then they told us the cab had arrived before they had even gotten anywhere close to settling our tab with us. Yes, it was 1am, but that is quite standard when ordering the tasting menu at a two- or three-star restaurant. The experience should dictate the departure time, not the clock.
One more point which I did not know about until the next day. One of my friends had “gone to the bathroom” and talked to the staff about some way to celebrate my birthday. They said they had not been informed of this in advance, which was completely untrue as I had specifically mentioned it was my birthday when I made the booking, and they then indicated unwillingness to do anything spontaneous. My friend was rather irritated with them after this.
Ok, I don’t specifically expect a restaurant to remember it’s my birthday as a general rule, but two three-star restaurants have done this on their own even without prompting from another member of the party. Auberge de L’Ill gave me a small, complimentary birthday cake at the end of the meal, and then had a staff member carried it back to the hotel for us. Per Se printed “Happy Birthday Jana” at the top of the menu and put a candle in my dessert. It’s not like the gesture has to be big or expensive in order to make a happy memory. The chef could sign the menu, they could give you a complimentary drink, or they could even just wish you a Happy Birthday. It’s not so much that they did not remember, as much as they refused upon request. This is just another example of lack of attention to non food-related details on their part.
You may think I’m being picky, but these are the things that make the difference between a good, a great, and a an unforgettably mind-blowing experience. When logistics are an issue, i.e. when they are poor enough to start directly affecting you, then they detract from the overall experience. When the staff are not attentive or personable (most likely because they’re trapped in fighting with the logistics), as at Noma, then your interactions with them stay at the lower level of “Can you please tell us what we’re drinking?”
When the restaurant can work at a higher level (e.g. invisible logistics and personable, attentive staff), then your focus remains on higher levels of enjoyment and ones interactions with the staff are raised to a higher level as well. These are the times when you end up hearing stories about how they came to work at that restaurant and what their ambitions are, having the chef’s significant other or equivalent come to your table and ask how your meal is; discussing the most exciting developments in the world of wines with the head sommelier; getting tours of wine cellars; and even getting to go into the kitchen to meet the chef at the end of the night, all of which have helped create unforgettable experiences at some of the three-star restaurants I have eaten at.
I don’t think Noma was even the best two-star restaurant I’ve eaten at. Also, you can spend the same amount of money elsewhere and get better food and service, e.g. you can go to a three-star restaurant on the “continent” and have your mind blown away, or, if you must stay in Scandinavia, you can also try Frantzén Lindeberg in Stockholm, which also has two stars.
Although I have not tried FL lately (since I’ve been there they have stopped using a “set menu” and let the day’s fresh produce dictate the menu), they were better two years ago before they had even gained their first star. FL had excellent food, delicious with innovative combinations and experiences, and excellent service (although one would hope so with so few tables).
My final verdict is that Noma is too focused on serving the food itself at the price of the rest of the experience. Given their standing, they do not give enough attention to the other parts of the total experience, e.g. service, logistical execution, and attention to non food-related details. Also, as mentioned above, the menu was uneven and the wine pairings good but not excellent. It was nice to try as I was curious about their “world’s best” rating (which I now know I can take with several grains of salt), but I would not recommend it and I do not plan on going back.
Menu:
Noma Menu
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