Our trip : Noma
Noma has been on my radar for a while. I’ve read the highly acclaimed articles and seen the documentaries. I never thought that I would ever get to see or experience its food and table service until I jokingly suggested that we try and go during our trip. After checking their website and researching around, I found that one must make reservations ahead of time, you could not just show up! Digging further, it appeared that reservations booked out as far as three months from the current day and so I made a note in my calendar to make a reservation exactly three months prior to our stay in Copenhagen. When that day came and I went online to make the reservation, the availability was already closed. There were no more open tables. No so surprised but still a bit disappointed, I half-heartedly added our names to the waitlist and forgot about it…
…Until the first night after we arrived in Copenhagen! It was like culinary Christmas in August! We confirmed our newly appointed reservation and spent the rest of the time shopping for a nice dress shirt for Thom to wear since he never thought to bring one! 😳
I’ve already raved and given my adoring thoughts of the experience at Noma but I never went into detail of the food and service. I thought it would be nice to write that down in this post to serve as a written memory of each plate with my thoughts. And it’s truly a good thing that I do this since chef René Redzepi is closing the famed restaurant at the end of this year to evolve Noma into a kind of urban farm.
So here is the list of each course served for their Summer 2016 lunch menu:
- Rhubarb and seaweed
- Vegetable platter: flatbread & ant paste, pickled quail egg, a black currant berry
- Radish pie
- Break with cow’s milk butter
- Dried Danish tomatoes and fresh milk curd
- Sea urchin and cabbage
- Lobster, onion, and lavender
- Crisp of wild plums and Danish peas
- Butternut squash and fermented barley
- Steamed king crab and egg yolk sauce
- Charred greens and scallop paste
- Turbot grilled on the bone with sweet shrimp
- A dessert of sheep’s milk and ant paste
- Grilled rose ice cream and elderflower
- Moss cooked in chocolate, cep mushroom, egg liqueur, wild berries
We had the option to add on a wine or juice paring. Since it was only noon and I can barely drink a full glass of wine let alone stand the headache it gives, I opted for the juice paring. The pairings consisted of:
- elderflower/spearmint
- rose/redcurrant
- green gooseberries/tarragon
- red gooseberries/geranium
- cabbage/lovage
- green pea husk
Now, I understand, when a typical/everyday person reads that list, they might be thinking: waht? Pea husks? Moss? Ant paste? Yuck.
I think it’s easy to write off food that uses strange and interesting combinations of flavors and leave it at that. But again, it’s about the experience too! I’ll list out each dish and do my best to describe the interesting backstories, sheer beauty and utter explosion of heightened flavors coming together to create such a delightful meal, so that by the end, you too might want to try ant paste. 😜
Lunch, 23rd August 2016:
Rhubarb and seaweed. The first dish to get the meal started off was placed on a bowl of ice. The rhubarb was shaped into a flower and upon first bit tasted pickled. The leaves and smaller flowers surrounding the rhubarb were all edible and helped to create a kind of salad with the pickled centerpiece.
Vegetable platter: flatbread & ant paste, pickled quail egg, a black currant berry. With certain dishes, we were instructed to use our hands rather than any service ware. I loved the informality of that! With this dish, we were given bit-sized pieces to try. The quail egg just melted, it was so buttery and light. The berry was tangy and the flatbread & ant paste had a citrusy taste.
Radish pie. Look at how pretty this dish is! It was almost too pretty to eat but I’m glad I tried it. It was surprisingly a bit sweet with the familiar radish bite. This dish was eaten without utensils.
Break with cow’s milk butter. I realize now that I never took a photograph of Noma’s famed bread and butter. The bread was a sourdough made from a starter well over thirteen years old! The butter was described as coming from a single cow.
Dried Danish tomatoes and fresh milk curd. Tangy tomatoes with creamy milk curd. The broth really tied the two together. It was surprisingly served cold.
Sea urchin and cabbage. I had never tried sea urchin prior to this meal and I hadn’t known when I tasted it at that time. The result was a slightly sweet and buttery taste! We were told that they had picked the urchin just the day prior.
Lobster, onion, and lavender. This dish consisted of perfectly grilled onion petals and fresh melt-in-your-mouth lobster. The lavender was a nice surprise and added floral flavor to help round out the dish.
Crisp of wild plums and Danish peas. We were told that the peas were all hand-picked of their husks in order to prepare this meal. I couldn’t believe the level of dedication! The plum pastry was very tart and the peas helped to mellow them out. This dish was eaten without utensils.
Butternut squash and fermented barley. A lot of fermented elements of each new dish began to appear, beginning with this dish. It was really amazing how familiar foods changed under the magic of fermentation.
Steamed king crab and egg yolk sauce. This was my favorite dish out of all the courses. Prior to the meal, a waiter had brought over a live king crab to show us the enormity of it and to let us know exactly how fresh our meals were. Very fresh indeed! Also to contradict this, the egg yolk sauce consisted of a beef broth that had been fermented well over 25 years.
Charred greens and scallop paste. We visited the smoker later after the meal but it was really interesting how they were able to prepare vegetation that really tasted “meaty”. I can’t recall exactly what kind of plants this dish made up of but each had a very distinct taste and meaty flavor.
Turbot grilled on the bone with sweet shrimp. This dish was surprisingly complex. The circular-shaped leaves were actually these delicious dumplings!
A dessert of sheep’s milk and ant paste. Finally we get to the dessert portion of the meal. This dish consisted with ground ants yet again. I really am surprised to find how “bright” they taste. The sheep’s milk really helped to mellow out the citrusy taste. Overall it was quite sweet to eat and this dish was one of the few that I couldn’t finish in it’s entirety.
Grilled rose ice cream and elderflower. Such great presentation and innovation for this dessert popsicle. The ice cream was very smooth and mellow in taste. It wasn’t until you bit into the creamy center that you received the very sweet elderflower middle.
Moss cooked in chocolate, cep mushroom, egg liqueur, wild berries. I never knew that chocolate covered moss and fermented mushrooms could taste so good! But good they were and I was very happy to eat as much as I could. The berries were hand-picked that day and really held the ripeness of late summer fruit. The egg liqueur was something close to an eggnog but with a more deeper brandy-like taste. All-in-all, a great way to end a great meal!
The staff were all very welcoming and friendly. There wasn’t any air of superiority. Everyone greeted us when we entered and said their farewells when we left. We enjoyed sitting at the group table for lunch and the people we ate with were from all over the world. If you find that you are going to Noma, I suggest trying to opt for the community table since you can meet such interesting people.
Would I ever eat there again? Probably not. Noma was on a bucket list that I’m very fortunate and happy to cross off. This doesn’t exclude the fact that I enjoyed the food and service very much. Seriously! It was the best culinary experience that I’ve ever had and I’m happy to share it here in this post.
This post is a part of a series based on my recent two-week trip to Europe.
To read this in order:
