It’s 8 p.m. on a Wednesday night and I’m standing outside Noma, waiting for the earpiece-wearing, iPad-clutching hostess to tell us our table’s ready. “We’re waiting for the other tables to finish up,” she says with a steely smile, one honed over years of telling people to wait their damn turn. We’re on time (of course we’re on time—it took six months to get this reservation) and our entire party is here, but still...we wait.
Noma is a “worth the wait” kind of place, like the bottle of cabernet you've kept sealed until your 50th wedding anniversary. Since reopening in early 2018 following a relocation and renovation, Noma 2.0, which was designed by Danish starchitect Bjarke Ingels, has been the hottest seat in town. Not that it wasn’t already. Since its arrival in 2003, chef René Redzepi's Noma has been recognized as the restaurant that entirely reinvented Nordic cuisine. It has two Michelin stars and was ranked the best restaurant in the world for four years by Restaurant magazine and the World’s 50 Best list.
“Noma has sold out all reservations,” says the website, six months out. “Try another party size or date.” You can try any combo of dates or party sizes—you'll probably get the same answer. Though maybe your party of eight will get lucky? Hungry diners have been scrambling since February to check out the new menu—20 courses that rotate each season (eg. all vegetables in springtime, all game in the fall), costing you about $375 plus an extra $200 for wine pairings—and space. And oh, that space. Set on the banks of a lake in Christiania (aka “hippie town”) on the outskirts of downtown Copenhagen, in the shadow of Copenhill (the city’s innovative new waste management plant also designed by Ingels), the restaurant itself occupies a former warehouse but looks more the part of an old Danish village (with a hint of start-up campus). The ‘community’ of buildings—interconnected by glass-covered paths and done in light oak, glass, and salvaged brick—is like a compound dedicated to foraging and fermenting: There’s a 42-seat dining room and a private dining space; kitchen and staff dining area; lounge and fermentation lab. Outside, along the main building, are three greenhouses, which serve as a test kitchen, bakery, and garden. Noma isn’t just a restaurant—it’s a destination unto itself.
Ali Sonko, the world’s most famous former dishwasher who worked his way up at Noma to become a partner in 2017, strolls up to the entrance, his lanky frame dressed in a sharp black suit. Part of his role is to greet guests, so he cracks a megawatt smile and casually chats with diners waiting to be seated—a sort-of spirited maitre d’. It’s now 8:20, the light is beginning to dim, and anticipation is high, to the point where we start questioning whether we got something wrong. Not that Noma would have gotten it wrong—never! “Was the reservation definitely for 8 p.m.?” I anxiously ask my fellow table mate. Yes, yes, she nods. A young gentleman dressed in jeans and a hoodie walks up to the Noma gatekeeper. “I was wondering if you have a table for one,” he asks casually, like it’s an Olive Garden. “I was just walking past and looking for a restaurant,” he continues. Seeing as how we’re in a warehouse district, over two miles from the city center, Noma isn't the kind of restaurant you just 'happen upon.' The woman with the iPad politely tells him the restaurant is fully booked but directs him to the website for a future reservation. Which means he may be back in six months time.
At 8:30 they’re finally ready to seat us. I follow the gatekeeper along the narrow grass-lined path, past the lake and greenhouses, to the looming oak entrance, which looks like a barn. I tentatively push open the wooden door. “Hello, and welcome to Noma!” the gathered staff, of around a dozen, says, cheerily, in unison. I get such a fright, I almost yelp. For this brief moment, service has ground to halt. Get this: A collection of waiters, chefs, and sommeliers greets every single new party with the "Noma hello," the restaurant’s signature warm welcome. Then, as quickly as they appear, they scuttle off to their normal duties—the chef back to the kitchen, the waiter to his table. We're escorted past the open kitchen with its oak-wood islands, as neat and orderly as the the royal guards outside Kensington Palace, into the glass-fronted dining room, which has a lofty peaked ceiling. It’s almost entirely made of sanded oak wood and is hygge as hell.
Waiters in black T-shirts and gray aprons circle our long table taking drink orders while dishing out alarmingly warm smiles. (I’ve lived in New York for too long to remember that service should be done with a smile.) I order the wine pairing (despite having gone to pre-dinner drinks, which I did just so I could brag to the waiter that I had "a reservation at Noma to get to"). The diner next to me orders the juice pairing, which includes a selection of herby elixirs, teas, and non-alcoholic cocktails like rose kombucha and mushroom tea. Smart choice, given that we have 20 courses to get through. The waiters scurry back in with the first course of the ‘vegetable season’ menu: a broth made of potato and elderflower served in a terra-cotta pot, which has to be sucked through a straw. It’s earthy and warming and I suck on that straw until I hit the dregs, gurgle, like a kid at a milkshake bar.
What follows is a flurry of vegetables done every way possible: steamed, grilled, boiled, poached, smoked, stretched, and sautéed until they hardly resemble the original veg at all. We receive an acidic tart of potato, nasturtium, and rose with a fruit ‘leather’ of sea buckthorn, followed by a tunnel of dried cucumber filled with herby paste, and then smoked quails eggs with ‘chorizo’ made from plum and rosehip. Each time a new course comes out—or, rather, is presented—a chef or waiter talks the diners through the dish and all its individual elements. ‘Vegetarian chorizo’ requires explaining.
The meal is carefully timed. When the diner sitting opposite me gets up to go to the bathroom, a waiter gently taps him on the shoulder and asks him to wait until the next course is served, then flashes another one of those alarmingly warm smiles. It's then time for the pièce de résistance, a celeriac and truffle shawarma. The chef lumps the giant shawarma, which looks distinctly like the meat shawarmas I’ve seen inside doner kebab kiosks, on the end of the table. He holds onto the stick peeping out the top and proudly begins slicing pieces of celeriac and truffle meat. It’s served with a gravy, red currants, greens, grilled apple, and hunks of sourdough with local butter on the side—just like a good ol’ Sunday roast, but not. The shawarma has a soft, airy, chewy texture and looks so much like meat it tricks my brain into thinking it tastes like meat. It's not like anything I've ever had.
By now it’s nearly 11:30 p.m., we’re around 17 courses and ten glasses of wine down, and we still have dessert to go. We receive an ice cream pancake made from molded barley, filled with ice cream and a fig balsamic, which makes my mouth tingle, followed by a rose-scented elderflower cake coated in chocolate that resembles a tiny potted plant in a terra-cotta pot. Oh, Noma, way to close the circle. Once the final crumbs have been licked from the plates and I’m feeling a little buzzed, a waiter whisks us around the restaurant to show us the kitchen (which is now empty and even more spotless than before); the private dining room, where students who buy tickets online sit; the fermentation lab, where the preserved morels I ate were created; and past the greenhouses outside. The last stop is the lounge: a sexy ‘70s-style, glass-fronted room with white brick walls, couches, and mid-century leather chairs. It’s now well after 1 a.m. and most of the staff has gone home, but we order shots of Aquavit and Schnapps from the lone bartender anyway. Our taxi arrives while we’re slumped on the lounge chairs, glasses in hand. We’ve waited months for this reservation, so frankly, the taxi can wait, too.
