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Noma, the most influential restaurant in the world, is closing (we know, right) - so what does that mean for fine dining?
After twenty years of operation Noma announced on the 8th January that it will be closing its doors in 2024. Noma has repeatedly topped the 50 Worlds Best list, recently for a fifth time (equalling Ferran Adria’s El Bulli and disqualifying it from winning again), and just last year was finally (with a breath of relief for many chefs and foodies at Michelin thankfully recognising Noma with this award) granted the illusive third Michelin Star that has been so close but seemingly so out of reach for so long.
Chef and founder Rene Redzepi opened as an ambitious and talented 25 year old. His pursuit crafted a cuisine known as New Nordic, an approach to fine dining that actively moved away from the traditional French standard of Foie Gras and Alba truffles, and instead forging plates with a sense of hyper-locality often referred to as Nordic locavorism (in short, Redzepi drew a circle around the Nordic region and gather all the ingredients from it)- seasonally defined, culturally inspired dishes centred around locally foraged materials, fermentation, and ageing. What you can find is what you can eat. Dishes like reindeer ragout with cooked grains and seeds served over a bed of autumn leaves or crispy marigold flowers with egg yolk sauce, or pigs blood ice cream. These dishes offer simplicity in words but require a deep technical understanding to serve. Many dishes are developed in the Noma Food Lab, so influential that its former head David Zilber wrote a book on fermentation while at the lab that sits now on every wannabe chef (and chef chefs) bookshelf (yes, the one from Bear). Simple menu descriptions could never do justice to the food that is served on those plates.
The restrictions that Redzepi has placed on Noma as a fine dining restaurant pushed the boundaries of creativity within food. Restrict often crafts innovation and the innovation was genre bending and internationally inspiring. Chefs of any level, any pedigree, any background fought for a coveted unpaid place as a stagiaire. To work for free just to taste the brilliance of the operation, to be able to write on their resume those four bankable letters. To be offered a paid position as a member of Noma staff offered international credibility as a leader in the industry.
It was only in October last year that Noma began paying their stagiaires in the management of the fallout from an article written in The Financial Times. The article detailed the consistent abuse and bullying of employees and stagiaires at the top restaurants in Copenhagen at which Noma sits at the top of the hill in influence and impact. Redzepi has shared that paying these staff a base wage has increased his wage costs by $50,000USD ($72,000 AUD) per month. While this has clearly impacted the decision to close, Redzepi defined his decision in relation to finally having time to consider the unsustainable business model during the pandemic, the longest period of time away from the kitchen in his professional life. It was enough time to realise - like a lot of chefs - that it cannot continue forever: not just the business model but the life it involves.
While Noma closing its doors in 2024 will be a sad day for anyone who wants to dine at one of their tables, the influence of Noma can be seen in every major city in the world. The restaurants you love to eat at, the ones that people go to on special occasion, even the taco stands and wine bars that line the back streets - all of these have likely been impacted by the Noma. Any chef worth their salt will brag of the days THEY were at Nova, worn like a stripe of honor having passed through the hallowed halls of the king maker. And while I feel some chefs in Australia would beg to differ, the time Noma spent in Australia with its pop-up in 2015 shone a spot light on the under-utilised native flora and fauna to be found all over Australia. If it wasn’t for the time Noma spent in Australia a lot of these ingredients and their applications - including Kakadu plums, pig face, Neptunes necklace, emu bush and mat rush - would have remained in relative obscurity or at least taken a lot longer to be present on mainstream menus.
So what does this mean for restaurants and fine dining as we know it? Well, not all that much, really. It has been a month and it already feels like old - somewhat redundant - news It is time for Rene to step aside. There is a fear that it will send shock waves through the fine dining community. There were the same fears when Ferran Adria closed El Bulli - how would food ever be the same? The answer is, it won’t be. It will shift and change and take on the nuance and wonder of the future, just as Rene reshaped what Ferran did after passing through his kitchen in 1999, one of Rene’s disciples will choose what comes next. With any luck, it will be a restaurant a little closer to home.
Daniel has a Masters in Food Culture from The University of Gastronomic Science in Pollenzo, Italy. He is a writer, a chef, and a recovering restauranteur.