Each year we see a number of new people; they are young, fresh-faced, filled with passion and an unbridled sense of curiosity that brings them to our restaurant, eager for a new experience. Here they work alongside our kitchen’s regular staff of twenty-four as part of a three month internship – they get a glimpse into our way of life and we give them an opportunity to become an integral part of our restaurants’ daily operations; the foraging, harvesting from our farms, and the opportunity to see ingredients through to the guests. They participate in creating dishes during our Saturday Night Projects, attend lectures by the Nordic Food Lab and hopefully a seed is planted for understanding seasonality. These dear interns, or stagiers as they are called in the industry nomenclature, are a fundamental part of our trade, and we would certainly not be where we are today without this group of eager students and young chefs volunteering their time.

For us, the internship program serves as an invaluable source of help in all the daily chores. But even more importantly, it has been a great basis for new friendships and each time we hire new staff, they almost always come from this pool of talent. For instance, every one of our current sous chefs are former stagiers. Our chef René was himself a stagiere around the world before opening noma. It is a part of sharing ideas and knowledge that is quite special in our trade. We wouldn’t want to be without stagiers and we believe that everyone that has been through noma shares in part of our success.

But amidst this cycle of interns that flow in and out of the restaurant every few months, we also sometimes say goodbye to members of our staff. So we want to highlight some of them here and show our support in their endeavours. These are people that have dedicated a significant amount of time (sometimes as much as nine years) to our restaurant. It is also a tribute to a small group of people that have made a special impact here. The noma alumni…

Denmark

• Claus Henriksen: former sous chef at noma; head chef at Dragsholm Slot, 100 km west of Copenhagen

• Christian Puglisi: former sous chef at noma; founder and head chef of Restaurant Relae and owner of Manfreds & Vin in Copenhagen

• Kim Rossen: former assistant restaurant manager at noma; partner, co-founder and restaurant manager of Restaurant Relae and Manfreds &Vin in Copenhagen

• Torsten Bachmann Vildgaard & Søren Westh: former Head of R&D in the Test Kitchen, and sous chef, respectively; co-founders of the company En-Spire

• Samuel Nutter and Victor Wagman: former sous chefs at noma; opened Restaurant Bror in Copenhagen March 2013

• Matt Orlando and Julie Orlando: former head chef at noma and waiter at noma; opening restaurant Amass in Copenhagen in July 2013

• Søren Ledet: former sous chef at noma; owner and restaurant manager at Geranium in Copenhagen

• Jesper Kirketerp: former sous chef at noma; partner and head chef at Radio in Copenhagen

• Anders Selmer: former restaurant manager and sommelier at noma; founder and co-owner of Fiskebaren in Copenhagen

Sweden

• Robert Jakobsen: former sous chef at noma; head chef at B.A.R. in Malmö

• Johan Erikson: former pastry chef at noma; head chef Oaxen Krog & Slip in Stockholm

Norway

• Jo Bøe Klakegg: former chef-de-partie at noma; co-owner and head chef at Restaurant Fauna in Oslo

United Kingdom

• James Knappett and Sandia Chang: former sous chef and waiter at Noma; head chef and owner, and restaurant manager of Bubble Dogs and Kitchen Table in London

• Oliver Croucher-Stephens and Caroline Kremer: former chef-de-partie and PR co-ordinator; head chef and hotel manager at Priory Bay Hotel in the Isle of Wight

Ireland

• Yannick Van Aecken and Louise Bannon: sous chef and chef-de-partie in pastry; opening Restaurant NEDE in Dublin

Australia

• Benjamin Greeno: former sous chef at noma; head chef at Momofuku Seiōbo in Sydney

• Ben Devlin: former chef-de-partie at noma; head chef at Esquire in Brisbane

• Cory Campbell: former sous chef at noma; head chef at Vue de Monde in Melbourne

USA

• Blaine Wetzel: former chef-de-partie at noma; head chef and partner at The Willows Inn on Lummi Island, Washington

• Daniel Burns: former pastry chef at noma; opened Tørst, a beer bar in Brooklyn in March 2013, which will be followed by the opening of a restaurant, Luksus in May 2013

• Mads Refslund: original co-founder of noma; consulting head chef of ACME in New York City

• Milton Abel: former sous chef in pastry at noma; head pastry chef at The French Laundry in California

Poland

• Robert Trzopek: former chef-de-partie; co-owner of Tamka 43 in Warsaw

Singapore

• Andrés Lara: former pastry chef at noma; pastry chef at Pollen Street

Over the years, as our staff grew and our dining room saw more and more guests, we were able to sporadically expand the kitchen; one month buying a paco jet, the next a blast freezer or a dehydrator, making room for them where we could as we went along.

Almost ten years later, we have a kitchen staff nearing fifty people and close to twenty in the front of house. In that time, we have luckily been able to renovate certain areas of the restaurant to better suit our growing family and to ultimately find ways to provide a better experience for our guests. In the summer of 2011, we underwent a rather extensive renovation to our first floor that has had a considerable and positive impact on our daily lives. Our goal in renovating our upstairs space, previously a banquet room, was to create a collaborative and comfortable space: one that has room for all of our staff to come together every day to eat staff meal; and to bring our various operations, including the office and our test kitchen, altogether. Having this space for ourselves has given us an area to relax, reflect and unwind together, creating benefits that extend into the dining room.

Now, as we approach our 10th anniversary, it is time to bring that atmosphere and functionality into our kitchen. What has become a jigsaw puzzle of kitchen equipment and workspaces, will be demolished entirely and rebuilt from scratch with a goal of not only increasing flow and utility in the kitchen thereby improving service, but with an aesthetic and design aimed at providing a more comfortable and communal environment for our chefs.

Demolition will begin 01July and final renovations will be completed by 20 July, just in time for our reopening, after the summer break, on 01 August.

Below lies a sneak peak …

Brand new 100m2 kitchen

view of the kitchen

The blueprint of our new kitchen - we're effing excited....

”Very few people can get three chefs to jump in the water. Roderick Sloan is the man who can and did. It is people like Rod who make the real magic behind what we do”

-Trevor Moran, former product sous chef at noma.

Nordskot

A day’s journey – two flights and a catamaran ride – North of Copenhagen lies the island of Nordskot. Floating high in the Norwegian Arctic, it bears witness to a truly unimaginable diversity of exotic life-forms, of which at least two our small team had an extraordinary experience with during a few, short winter days: sea urchins; and the mad Scot who catches them, Roderick Sloan.

Live, Laugh, Love & DIVE

Sea urchins have been around for some 600 million years. The Norwegian Green Sea Urchin, collected by hand by Sloan and his chief diver Paweł Laskowski from the Arctic Ocean, where water temperatures fall to between -2 and 2 C, is just one of about 700 species of sea urchin. Jumping into the ocean from a “bulletproof and unsinkable” ex-Norwegian Army boat (“Pirates, no stress”) during the dark and freezing winter months, they dive for 3-4 hours at a time, collecting between 100 and 150 kgs of urchins per week.

Norwegian Green Sea Urchins

When René Redzepi first contacted Sloan in 2007, he was not especially keen on more sea urchin adventures – he wanted to return to university and become an engineer. After several attempts to fob Redzepi off with every excuse in the book – from health and safety issues to bad weather and broken engines (as well as some considerable nagging from his wife, Lindis) – he eventually decided to give his passion for sea urchins another go. Since then, Sloan has rapidly become the epicentre for the rise of these Arctic delicacies. However, it’s not only urchins that he harvests by hand, but also the gently growing Mahogany Clam (there was one found in Iceland that was 507 years old), the sluggish-looking Softshell Clam and, most recently, the Sea Cucumber; supplying restaurants throughout Scandinavia and Northern Europe.

After spending several days with Roderick, as our final day drew to a close, he said goodbye to us and left the house we’d been staying in on the small island of Grøtøy, off the coast of Nordskot. Suddenly, after a few minutes, he reappeared to let us know of the “fireworks” outside. As we lined up on the hill to watch the Northern Lights unfold (chef Matt Orlando squeeling with amazement) Sloan began walking down towards his boat. As I turned around to see what was going on, he stared into the darkness with the words:

“I’m still gonna go home, you know”.

Watch Roderick Sloan’s presentation at the 2012 MAD Symposium here.

Northern Lights seen from Grøtøy

Brewing in service

How could we offer a coffee serving that was both delicious and interesting and could also work within our hectic daily restaurant routine? This was the question that we needed to answer.

For me, it seemed obvious to work with an old friend, Tim Wendelboe, one of the leading roasters and coffee personalities in Europe. We had met and worked together in Norway and it was indeed he that sparked my initial interest in coffee.

Besides being a world champion barista, Tim also has great hands-on connections with farmers both in Kenya and Central-America, working hard for farmer’s rights and to improve the quality of picking and drying – both elements very important to us.

After several tests and discussions, we decided on brewing V60, a newly developed re-invention of drip brewing designed by a Japanese company. This method, together with Tim´s lightly roasted coffee, makes us able to play with the light, fresh and acidic flavors that you find familiar throughout a noma experience.

We also found that this coffee both tasted and looked amazing when cupped, resembling a deep red wine and smelling of red berries. Therefore, we were very happy when we contacted Nina Nørgaard, a local Danish glass blower, who, after a few early morning sessions together, designed our new cups and pots.

New coffee glassware

As we approached the start of our new coffee programme, we also began planning training sessions with all our front of house staff, which today numbers more than twenty people. In December we held a full day of lectures and brewing sessions with Tim. And on 04 March, we had our final session with him before starting to serve his coffee the following day.

We are very proud to say that it has been a success from the very first service. Feedback from guests has been very good and staff are enjoying working with the new coffee.

At the moment we are serving coffee from Mount Elgon, from a cooperative named Kapsokisio located in the western part of Kenya. Only fully ripened cherries go into this blend of varieties sl28 and sl34.

We are seriously looking forward to continuing to experiment and play with the coffee brewing and different bean varieties together with Tim.

8000 bottles of wine shipped from Brest (France) to Knippelsbro (Knippel’s Bridge, Copenhagen) summer 2012 – a guest post from Sune Rosforth

Our wine company, Rosforth & Rosforth, was established in 1993 and sells wine commercially to restaurants. For the past 12 years, the company has been located under Knippelsbro (Knippel’s Bridge) in Christianshavn (Christian’s Harbour). Towards the end of June 2012, we were contacted by one of our wine growers, Olivier Cousin in Anjou, with an offer that we simply couldn’t refuse.

Olivier Cousin is the producer of over 25 cuvees of wine but, in a previous life, he was once a sailor and often talked about transporting wine on a river barge all the way to Copenhagen. The wine could be transported straight to our door, as our storeroom is right on the water. After the harvest of 2011, the grape-picking season finished, two of Olivier’s pickers went to Brest, hoping to make their way across the Atlantic. They succeed in securing spots on a good sailing ship – one without an engine, actually. She was called Tres Hombres and was headed to the Caribbean to pick up cocoa beans. The two pickers were delighted and told Olivier about it. He loved the story and went straight to Brest himself to deliver some wine, which the same ship could take to his importer in New York. Nine months later, the ship returned to Europe, but Olivier’s wine remained in the hull of the ship. It turned out that it was too expensive and administratively impossible to enter the harbour of New York.

The Tres Hombres had actually sailed back to Brest to participate in a renowned festival for sailing ships, held every four years. The captain of the ship took this opportunity to contact Olivier and ask him if there was anywhere else he could try delivering his wine to. Olivier immediately asked his importer in London, who turned down the idea. It was then that he called us. We said yes.

However, for the trip to make any sense for us, we needed 8000 bottles of wine brought over – and not just from Olivier, but from several wine producers, all of which would have to be collected and transported to Brest within just two weeks, before the ship would set sail for Copenhagen. We deal with a number of wine growers situated in the 1000 km plus long Loire Valley and we succeeded in collecting wine for this trip from thirteen of them.

Finally, early on the morning of 19 July at the harbour in Brest, the last pallets having been loaded by hand only a few hours before and each box tightly wedged, the hold was sealed with canvas and sleepers. On this most Westerly part of the Continent, the weather is often rainy. However, that day the sun came out from behind the clouds and the light sparkled on the waves. The wind rushing through the sails, the gentle creaking of the timber and the sound of waves breaking against them were like magical music. E very ship takes off at the same time, but the Tres Hombres was given first priority to sail and crossed the bay ahead of spectacular sailing ships the size of multi-story houses. It is the only ship that had raised its sails and was on its way to Copenhagen. It was an amazing sight.

The Tres Hombres is a 32 meter long schooner made of wood. It is double-masted and was built in 1943 by German boat-builders. She was originally built for fishing and transporting war material. Three idealistic friends from Holland had long been looking for a wooden ship large enough to freight large amounts of goods and found it in a decrepit state somewhere in Southern Holland. Having fallen completely in love with it, they bought it. After two years of pain-staking hand restoration, in 2009 the Tres Hombres was finally finished and the engine removed. In fact, it is illegal for a ship of this size not to have an engine if transporting passengers – except for in Sierra Leone. Hence, it is the flag of Sierra Leone that decorates the ship. One of its first trips was to the Climate Change summit in 2009 in Copenhagen, where it lay at anchor outside of Amalienborg (the royal castle), covered in snow. It was a tribute to alternative means of transport – ones that do not require the use of fossil fuels.

We are now in the middle of August 2012 and in telephone contact with the captain of the Tres Hombres. They are making their way through Kattegat and will soon be rounding Helsinor, which has heavy ferry traffic. We are doing everything we can to make people aware of its arrival, however the wind decreases in intensity and the ship has to drop anchor off Rungsted Kyst. Various port authorities and tugboat drivers, who are in charge of opening the bridge, call us incessantly, but the ship is stranded and can arrive only when the wind allows it to. Suddenly, we realise how dependent man is on nature – and not the other way around!

The next morning we see the Tres Hombres appear on the horizon by Charlottenlund Fort. We are taken to the ship and helped on board by a smiling, merry crew. The sun is shining and the sky is clear blue. It is truly summer and absolutely magical to be onboard this ship. The wine must feel the same way. Like this, the energy from the growers’ hard work in the vineyards and the cellars are kept intact.

Altogether, we sail past the Little Mermaid all the way to Amaliehaven. From here the tugboats drag us under Knippelsbro to the quay. The sterile office buildings are of great contrast to the vivid ship and all its cordage. The wine is unloaded and each of the boxes are opened so that we can label every single one of the 8083 bottles with guarantee marks containing a tracking code. All those bottles made 13 pallets of wine. The atmosphere was euphoric and the wine that was stored lower down in the hull was still cool enough to drink and had a divine taste.

Once unpacked, we went on to make a special delivery with the Tres Hombres. Restaurant noma had ordered 300 bottles and, since it is only a few hundred meters away from our wine cellar, we drag the ship by the cordage to the canal in front of the restaurant. We felt like explorers who had made their way up the Amazon. Little by little, we see the natives emerging from the densely grown jungle. They look at us with great curiosity. Their garments are all alike and look unmistakably like chefs’ aprons. We remained wary, but suddenly one of the chefs approached with a tray of familiar foods. They tasted great. In return, we showed them our precious cargo and opened a bottle. They drank from it and smiled. It is obvious that these natives sensed how full of life the wine was. This wine that they tasted had been across the Atlantic and back. We danced all night. The very next morning, the Tres Hombres had already continued its journey onwards. No words could describe the pain in our hearts. Nonetheless, we were left enriched and delighted.

See you again!

Sune Rosforth

Unfortunately during week 7 (February 12th -16th) 2013, there were a number of cases where guests at noma where hit by Norovirus after their visit. It is a matter that deeply affects us all, and that we sincerely regret.

Since receiving the news, we have been working closely with The Danish Veterinary and Food Administration to find the source of the problem. As a result of our collaboration, we have determined the most likely cause of illness was Norovirus, which may have been brought in by a member of staff, who was symptom-free.

As a precaution the kitchen and restaurant have been deep cleaned several times following Health Inspection guidelines. This has been done on top of the overall cleaning, which takes place several times a day. Finally, all foods from week 7 were destroyed.

We have been in direct contact with all the customers affected.

Sincerely,

Rene Redzepi

Response to media reports/facts

• When did it happen

In the second week of February noma received information that guests had felt unwell.  We were advised by The Danish Veterinary and Food Administration, that norovirus, the winter flu bug was the cause.  They advised that it was spread via a staff member, who was a carrier and did not show any symptoms of the virus.

• Number of sick guests

There were 63 guests who got sick during this time period out of a total of 435 guests who visited the restaurant at that time.

• Response time

We received the first e-mail Thursday Feb 14.  We have staff and guests from all over the world and unfortunately there was a slight delay as the email was picked up initially by a non-Danish speaking member of the team and wasn’t responded to until Monday after the weekend service. We have addressed this and immediately changed our internal procedures.

• Actions taken in the kitchen

After Managing Director Peter Kreiner spoke with The Danish Veterinary and Food Administration on Monday Feb 18 guidelines were given and procedure put in place. noma is closed Monday so Tuesday morning staff re-set and cleansed the kitchen thoroughly. This procedure also included disposal of all produce which had been touched during the previous days. The procedure was repeated 3 more times during the following 48 hours.
On Feb 20, noma had a meeting and inspection with The Danish Veterinary and Food Administration. They were satisfied with their findings and the restaurant was given the all clear.

• Hot water

noma is required to have at least one sink for washing hands in the kitchen. Noma has kitchens on two floors. On both floors noma has two sinks for washing hands. On the day it was tested, Wednesday Feb 20, three sinks worked to full satisfaction with very hot water, and the last one in the prep-kitchen was only lukewarm when tested. Noma’s reaction was to call a plumber immediately to fix the problem, and it was.

• Policy for members off staff

Noma has always had a strict policy for members of staff showing signs of sickness, and that is to send them home immediately and ask them to stay home for 48 hours even after they feel well.

• Our affected guests

Managing Director Peter Kreiner immediately contacted all the parties after received the notice, informed them of the findings and assured them noma was cooperating closely and transparently with the Danish Food & Drug Administration/Health department to get to the bottom of this, and that they would be kept updated. The cooperation included tests of norovirus among both staff as well as guests. When the first results came in, indicating norovirus, guests were informed and offered either to return as our guests or to be fully refunded.  We are delighted that many guests have already accepted the offer to return to noma.

• Publication of the case

On Thursday Feb 28, noma received a copy of the new report from The Danish Veterinary and Food Administration, since noma received the new report we have placed it front of the restaurant, so it is visible to guests before they enter the restaurant.

Furthermore on March 1, we also published a link to the latest report on our website.

We are of course devastated that this has happened and have done everything in our power to ensure it will not happen again.

Thank you for your support.

Sincerely

Rene Redzepi and the entire team at noma

To improve and hopefully make a better experience for our guests in the future, we have a number of exciting changes planned for 2013.

Lately we have been working on a new approach for our juice menu. We are now at a point where we believe we can offer an exciting and extensive pairing of beverages without alcohol. It has expanded beyond simple fruit juices to now include a range of homemade beverages and blends that have been developed through a collaboration between Lars Williams in the test kitchen and our sommelier Mads Kleppe.

This year we will also be launching a new coffee program. We are still working on the last details such as the right glasses and the final training of the staff, but we are very excited to integrate it into service. Without a doubt this will be the biggest step forwards for better coffee that we have ever made.

Beers!
For many years we have offered a wide range of Scandinavian beers from small breweries. That is about to change. We are cutting the number of different beers down to 5 or 6 and instead of just buying the beers we will concentrate on developing our own exclusive brews with some of the best brewers in Denmark.

So far we will offer the following beers:
Birch and Nettle Noma Pilsner:  Made with Bryggeri Skovlyst.
Noma Novel: Made with inspiration from Duvel by Mikkeller.
Pontus: A Belgium Witbier with verbena made by Mikkeller. This beer is made as a tribute to our former Head Sommelier Pontus Elofsson.
Oxalis: A Pale Ale with oxalis made by Jeppe Bjergsø(Evil Twin) at Fanø Bryghus.
And a couple more to come soon…

Rebuilding the Kitchen:
The main construction project this year will be the redesign of our service kitchen. We will close for the entire month of July in order to get this going. Hopefully this will provide a better flow for our chefs and ultimately a better experience for our guests.

MAD Symposium:
Ali, Mark and the rest of the MAD team have been hard at work for the past few months planning this year’s MAD Symposium and other exciting events. New this year will be an interesting series called MAD Mondays.
To keep up with all of the latest details and for more information please visit:  http://madfood.co/

Further updates on the individual projects to follow…

We are looking forward to another exciting year!

Thanks to Anders Hemmingsen for shooting these.

Enjoy!

The primary point of departure, when examining Noma’s wine philosophy, is without a doubt the food. The wines at Noma are far and foremost chosen based on how well they go with the food. Noma’s kitchen is, as most probably know, based on Nordic ingredients, grown in a cool climate, which allows a long period of maturation. This is reflected in the style of Noma’s food, which in short can be described as elegant and light, with clean, fresh and stringent flavours.

The type of wines, which I believe is the best match with this kind of food, has the same qualities. It is wines from cooler appellations with a high and fresh acidity, great minerality and an elegant structure. In France it is primarily wines from Champagne, Loire, Savoie, Jura, Beaujolais and Burgundy, which live up to these specifications. But there are also wines from other parts of France, e.g. Rhône and Alsace that fit well into the selection. Outside of France, I focus mainly on wines from Germany, Austria and Northern Italy.
Wines grown in warmer climates therefore rarely exist at Noma, hence, there are no wines from for instance La Mancha, Basilicata, Australia or Chile, even though I once in a while succeed in discovering elegant and stringent wines from these areas. Overly extracted wines or wines that are too characterized by new oak also seldom exist at Noma. Ever so clever Jan Restorff – sommelier and restaurant manager at the Danish restaurant Søllerød Kro – hits the bull’s eye when stating that, “in the long run, elegance will always defeat power”.

- Nordic food craves Nordic beverages. Or?

The selection of Nordic drinks at Noma must likewise be regarded in relation to the food. The situation is rather paradoxical. Though the most obvious choice would have been serving nothing but Nordic beverages with our Nordic cuisine, and thereby complete the Nordic concept, only a fraction of the total selection of beverages at Noma is Nordic. This fact might call for further explanation.

The primary reason is the food, which in it self is a bit contradictory. As mentioned, it concentrates around the light and elegant style with clean, fresh and stringent flavours. Generally speaking, wine is the type of beverage that goes best with this sort of food due to its acidity, minerality and elegance. The traditional Nordic drinks like beer and aquavit in a variation of flavours usually go well with the rustic types of food, often with high fat content, which are also a part of the traditional Nordic kitchen, but not what you will find at Noma.
However, we do serve beer. To emphasise this, we even produce our own two Noma beers. Additionally, we have a selection of other Nordic beer on the menu, as opposed to solely Danish beer, and we often welcome guests who wish to drink nothing but beer with their meal. But personally I do not recommend beer nor spicy vodka for Noma’s food. In this connection, beer and vodka are far too clumsy. While beer is generally bitter and sweet and lacks acidity, wine has exactly this acidity, dryness and minerality, which at the same time is a great contrast to the high alcohol percentage and the strong flavour you find in an aquavit.

Consequently, I mostly prefer wine from the cool parts of Europe, as opposed to the Nordic beer or spirits, when it is to be combined with the food at Noma. And that is why the selection of Nordic drinks is relatively limited at Noma. Even though there are quite a few Nordic wines, ciders, juices (e.g. based on seabuckthorn), or other Nordic drinks, Noma will never begin working with Nordic beverages simply because they are Nordic. We can choose Nordic drinks when they live up to the standard of quality, and when the flavour matches the food at Noma. And so we do.

- organic, biodynamic and natural wine

The second focal point for the wine philosophy at Noma is organics and biodynamics. Most wines at Noma are, just like the food, organic or biodynamic. There are several reasons for this. One aspect is that they express the terroir much better than conventional wines. Organic and biodynamic wines appear very authentic and truthful to the natural environment in their area of origin. To express terroir is an important, or maybe even the most important, criterion of quality at Noma, both in connection to wine and food. The basic idea is to have the shortest possible distance between nature and the guest – to diminish the distance between the origin of the produce and the plate – or between the vine and the glass. Here, aesthetics and ethics are combined in the wish of bringing about the undisturbed, the clean and unique in respect of time and place. Based on local specifities, Noma has reached an expression, which owns general acknowledgment. Herein exists a great deal of Noma’s success.

Yet another circumstance, which is worth underlining, is that the organic and biodynamic wine producers are often relatively small with vineyards of no more than two to twelve hectares. This has proven to be the optimal size for one person, when considering all aspects; working in the vineyard and in the cellar and taking care of logistics – bottling, stacking, labelling and packing. To be small is not a proof of quality in itself, but it most often ensures a strong personal commitment to the product, which without a doubt must be regarded as a quality stamp. Common to most producers – no matter which industry they find themselves in – who dedicate their life and soul to their work, and who therefore see their work as an integrated part of their life, is the fact that the quality of the outcome normally is very high. And maybe this is the main reason – the engagement you find among most organic and biodynamic producers – for the high quality of the wine. Hence, it is not simply because they are organic or biodynamic. However, just the fact that it takes more work to produce organic or biodynamic wine means that these producers are willing to invest more effort in bringing forth their products, than the conventional producers. To produce organic or biodynamic wine is literally good workmanship, which requires the farmer to stick his hands in the soil.

No matter what, it is important to emphasize that wine that is certified organic or biodynamic is not per se good. The certification in itself is not a quality stamp. There are far too many examples of producers, who solely focus on the certification as a means to sell more wine, but who are completely indifferent about the quality of the wine – how it is produced and what it tastes like. Those producers should be rejected as bio-trash. Besides these, there are a third type of wine producers, who focus on organic or biodynamic production, and who therefore fulfil the requirements to become certified, but who do not make it all the way, so to speak. It is producers, who work reasonably in the field, but who does not bring the sanity with them to the cellar. Luckily, there are also those who place emphasis on both the process and the outcome, and these are the ones, I wish to work with and who I find deserve a place in the sun. This is where the controversial concept of natural wine comes into play.

The natural wine farmers work on a vision of non-invention; producing wine as natural as possible. This is done by staying away from manipulating the wine, both in the vineyards and in the cellar. Therefore it is no surprise that most natural wine producers are also organic or biodynamic. In this perspective, the natural wine fits perfectly into the wine selection at Noma, thus, here you find wines from the brothers Puzelat (Clos de –tue-Boeuf), Alexandre Bain, Emmanuel Houillon (Maison Pierre Overnoy), Eric Pfifferling (Domaine de l’Anglore) and Anthony Tortul (La Sorga) to mention but a few.

What is really fascinating about the natural wines is that they are allowed to express their naturally inherent potential in an uncensored way. With a minimum of human intervention, you are presented with wines that express aesthetics, where the deviant is considered as an attractive quality, the unpolished adds to the complexity, and the naked and raw are regarded as purity and authenticity. To me, these wines appear very exciting, and as a guest at Noma you should therefore expect that, as also noted by Jan Restorff: “At Noma you get lumpy wine”.

Pontus Elofsson
At Noma you get lumpy wine

What do you put in the wine glass at Noma?
And what are the thoughts behind the wine selection at one of the world’s most influential restaurants?
Noma’s head sommelier during 8 years tells about his life with wine and presents his interpretation of René Redzepis food in the wine. Organic, biodynamic and natural wine is the centre of attention.

Which wines go well with the elegant and light dishes that origins from Noma’s imaginative kitchen, which are based on Nordic ingredients and have a close relationship to nature. In time the answer has developed in the direction of natural wine – most of them organic or biodynamic.
It is Swedish Pontus Elofsson, who is the man behind the restaurant’s wine philosophy, and it has been quite a long journey, as Noma does also wish to challenge the guests by the content of the glass, and strive to be innovative and move away from the conventional landscape. Elofsson states: “In this connection, Noma has contributed to change the opinion about which wines are allowed in the glasses at a gourmet restaurant”.
The book gives insight into the thoughts behind the wine selection at Noma, thorough information about the concept of natural wine – vin nature – and educates us in paring wine and food.

Besides being a history about Noma’s wine philosophy, it is also Pontus Elofsson’s personal wine story. From the day he left university to become a sommelier, travelled across the Sound and got employed by some of Copenhagens top restaurants, before he, back in 2004, became the sommelier at Noma. Along the way, his taste in wine has changed radically, and most importantly, he has taken a turn towards biodynamic – a track, which he is still very fond of and which is being displayed in this book.

Here at the blog, we will soon post an extract of the first chapter of the book –
“A sketch of Nomas wine philosophy”

As always we are closed for three weeks during the summer to let everybody have a break. However, this year a lot of things will be happening while the restaurant is closed.

A part of the team is going to London to cook and meanwhile we will be rebuilding parts of the dining room.

The entire floor is being replaced by a new and much lighter wooden floor, and all furniture is going to be repainted.
The restrooms will be equipped with new toilets and furniture and all surfaces are going to be freshened up.
There will be new curtains in all windows, and the walls will be repainted as well.

In addition, the lounge area will undergo big changes. A new wall is build instead of the existing glass wall.
The big bar will be removed and replaced by smaller furniture. Hopefully, this will give us a more light and welcoming lounge.
Besides all the refurbishment, new tables and chairs are currently being made for the lounge – hopefully they will be ready before we are back from our summer break!

Lastly, our wine cabinets will finally be fixed. This will allow us to place further emphasis on serving our wine at the right temperature. Believe our sommeliers are a little tired of dealing with this issue every day.

We are very excited about all the changes and we are looking forward to be back at work. Ready for a new season.

At NFL chefs drive creative processes forward. Chefs over years of experimentation have a good idea of what may and may not be successful in terms of deliciousness. By practicing techniques repeatedly day after day, chefs master large numbers of (primarily) simple techniques. Combining these techniques in certain orders, chefs create systematic or ‘algorithmic’ processes’ which, in their nature as algorithms can have many different ‘inputs’ (ingredients) fed into them[1]. With the ingredient input, these become recipes, which with practice and refinement may create delectable results. In the words of Hervé This “A chef who envisions a dish that melts in the mouth, yet arrives [with a dish resembling cardboard], deserves no praise. He must therefore achieve what he sets out to do” (This and Gagnaire, 2008).

However in the experimental kitchen, there must be no inhibitions of the creative faculties, no fear of failing. In creating new and exciting foods, some failure must be expected. Much of NFL’s creative method works on a ‘sawn-off shotgun approach’[2]. As the idea leaves the proverbial gun barrel, it is sprayed wide. By using a chef’s experimentation mentality, we are able to push out ideas quickly, much like hurried chefs finalizing the menu five minutes before service. For example, with a desire to try to make vinegars – we wanted to have new flavours from interesting sources. By looking around the Noma kitchen and the laboratory stores we were able to make huge lists of potentially exciting flavours, which we believed, might work well with the distinctive acetic sourness of vinegar fermentation.
After compiling this list we are then able to concoct as many as 20 or 30 individual and combinations of flavours per day. Some of these will work in terms of their deliciousness, most will not. Of the many brews only a few will interest us, and it is these which enter into a second round of development, that of fine-tuning and refinement.

Our research methods for creating new recipes were based on a chef’s creative intuition for good taste, which experienced chefs spend their lives developing. Combining this intuition with scientific knowledge and accurate measurement we were able to work with ingredients for which we found no previous record of combining with these techniques.

There is a childlike innocence in the joy of uninhibited experimentation as we attempt to learn about our culinary surroundings through playful exploration. Simultaneously we are modern day alchemists, drawing from philosophy, technology and mythology: striving to attain some hypothetical, and possibly unobtainable level of delicious perfection.

We are evolving as part of a new ‘Age of Discovery’, we are thinking men, guided in what we do by taste, we are Homo saporens (homo = man, saporens = tasting). Through bricolage[3] of taste we build on past experiences, creating new combinations of gastronomic knowledge for the future.

[1] Algorithms are a set of rules or processes that can be followed methodically.
[2] Shotgun approach is a term used in the marketing industry to describe aiming to cover as wide a group of the population as possible. We appropriate this term to the kitchen, we cover as many ingredients, or as many different ideas as possible.
[3] ‘Bricolage’, as used by anthropologist Claude Levi Strauss, the way in which people and societies form as yet unknown concepts and ideas by taking parts of old ones, and recombining them in innovative ways to create ‘new’ concepts and ideas, In our context we are taking generations of culinary knowledge, dissecting it, and reappropriating the ideas to new ingredients and/or methods.

Please click here to see the list of confirmed speakers

According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) insects have, from a nutritional perspective, similar qualities to other meat sources. Insects have similar or higher content of protein, and contain a variety of fatty acids and vitamins that are important to humans. Breeding of insects also has a range of advantages compared to traditional livestock breeding – not least from an environmental perspective.

An acceptance of insects as food in the Western world can help create a real solution to the challenges that arise from the accelerating global food demand. This change can happen with the creation of knowledge and development of products that gradually build acceptance. We will thus – with gastronomic craft and scientific afterthought – challenge the existing cultural taboos.

The project has three primary targets:

• To develop new taste experiences based on our research and findings, with the aim to grant chefs the necessary culinary knowledge, expertise and inspiration to build on our findings, and thus help the development of the future gastronomic products and experiences.

• To increase biodiversity in food consumption by including insects as a basic food commodity, and thus contribute to the implementation of insect breeding in western agricultural industry.

• To give both the public and industry knowledge and inspiration, and thus contribute to an increased use of insects as food in the West.

The project is cross-disciplinary and consists of: 1) An anthropological survey, that will map out the social, cultural and historical processes in the rejection of insects as an acceptable food in the West, 2) a consumer study that explores the experiential and perceptual processes that determine the acceptability of insects as food, and 3) a culinary and gastronomic survey and analysis, that will determine the various potentials of insects as food. This cross-disciplinary approach will lead to the development of products that establish interest, knowledge and demand for edible insects.

As there is no common practice or culinary tradition for eating insects as foodstuff on the European continent it is necessary to conduct a research expedition to explore the ways in which insects are traditionally used in cooking practices in other world regions. The project will hence consist of a preparatory survey, followed by fieldwork in South- and Central America and East Asia, in the gastronomic quest to explore the use of insects in existing cultural and culinary practices. This will eventually lead to a consolidation of results from research and field work, and lay the foundations for a range of concrete strategies, methods and recipes.

Throughout the project our results will be simultaneously published through the press, scientific journals, conferences and via social media such as Facebook and Twitter, in which we are already established actors.

To disseminate the consumption of insects as food, called “entomophagy”, is not a philanthropic project as such, but can create real possibilities for growth on a global level that are environmentally, economically and commercially viable. By creating an early gastronomic angle on insects as food we can prepare the food industry, restaurant industry and public alike for the food situation of the future, in which biodiversity, sustainability and alternative foodstuffs will be in focus.

The design should never be in focus but like a delicate, white, clean plate present the Noma creations in the best possible way and be a subtle supplement to the experience.

The website was not designed to reflect the restaurant experience, as that would be impossible. The purpose is simply to provide the basic information.

We have strived to create a structure that is simple, relevant and intuitive. And by follwing our blog – “The wheather report” – it should never be static but dynamic as our menus and everything else we do in order to make a better experience for our guests.

Welcome.