Noma

Pike perch and verbena/Dill and cabbage
or, as I recorded it: Sauce of roasted fish bones, foamed, with fish, greens and a cabbage stem
(doesn't sound quite so good)

Rye bread, chicken skin, lovage and smoked cheese

I've kept the title of this post simple, in line with Noma's culinary philosophy: simple, raw, fetched from the fields, verges and seashore, right to your rustic-but-luxurious dining plate. Those of you who know me well may wonder how I ever enjoyed a dinner at Noma, presently holding the title of 'World's Best Restaurant', consisting as it does of predominantly raw vegetation. The answer is: champagne, conversation, photographs, discussion, and a large steak the next day. Having said that, the experience was one which I can recommend, and which I did truly enjoy - surprisingly, even some of the food.

Pickled and smoked quails eggs

The day began with a midday rendezvous at Noma's premises, an ex-salt warehouse on the Copenhagen harbour. We met the staff, and chef Rene Redzepi, a 33 year-old Dane who opened Noma only in 2003. What  meteoric rise. Rene was hospitality itself, spending ages chatting to everyone, enthusing about new ideas. His staff (the front of house head is Australian) all exude the same casual and friendly charm. The restaurant, which seats 45 for lunch and 35 for dinner (exactly, every day except Sundays and Mondays) is casual rustic chic, the ancient salt still seeping out fromt the walls, the furniture classic Modern Danish. If you want to make a reservation, call or book online three months ahead. They take bookings only three months out, opening them up at the beginning of each month. When the 'Best Restaurant' thing was announced, they had 100,000 hits on their website and the server crashed.

Following a tour of the kitchen, and the news that out of 12 dinner courses only one or two are "protein" (i.e. meat or fish), we were offered the opportunity to board a bus with Rene and go foraging at the seaside. My prospective dining companion and I declined the foraging offer, and when I heard later that one offering at the seaside was a taste of still-wiggling prawns ("you can taste the ocean!") I knew we had made the right decision.

Scallops and beech nut/Biodynamic cereals and watercress

We returned to Noma that evening, dressed to kill (who knows? we might need to do that literally) and embarked on our culinary adventure. This consisted of 11 mini tasters, 11 full courses, 3 petit four offerings, accompanied by 9 different wines. I made notes as each appeared, trying to understand the descriptions given by the waiters (since it was often hard to tell by looking at the dish); I have found that my list bears little resemblance to the menu we were given at the end of the evening, so please take any following descriptions with a large grain of salt (not that you could do that literally at Noma, of course).

Vegetables and butter milk

But seriously now, this food left me, above all, with the impression that I had eaten clean food. I guess that was the lack of fat - unless you count the hay oil in which we fried out own eggs at the table, and the 'virgin butter' and 'traditional Danish' pork fat which was offered with the (delicious) bread. Rene's concept is to present Nordic seasonal food, so obviously - since the country freezes solid for half the year - his option for ingredients change significantly with the seasons. But in the summer months he believes in collecting whatever the land and seashore can offer. The food is not 'merely' organic, it is truly wild. To complement this, the wines served were all organic or bio-dynamic too.



Our Menu

Appetisers:
Malt flatbread and juniper
Nasturtium and snails
Moss and cep
Sea buckthorn leather and pickled hip roses
Blue Mussel
Cookie with lardo and currant
Leeks and sea weed
Rye bread, chicken skin, lovage and smoked cheese
Pickled and smoked quails eggs
Toast, herbs, smoked cod roe and vinegar
“AEbleskive”

Green strawberries and saladroot/Sorrelsauce
Scallops and beech nut/Biodynamic cereals and watercress
Vegetables and butter milk
Tartar and sorrel/Juniper and tarragon
Langoustine and söl/Oyster emulsion and rye
Onion and thyme/Goose berry juice
Pike perch and verbena/Dill and cabbage
The hen and the egg (involved no hen!)
Caramelized sweetbreads/wild mushrooms and greens from the hedgerow

Desert:
Rhubarb and juniper
Carrot and sea buck thorn

Petit fours:
Chocolate coated potato chips
Foamed yoghurt in chocolate
Bone-marrow caramel

Langoustine and söl/Oyster emulsion and rye
(fetchingly served on a large, warm boulder)

Caramelized sweetbreads/wild mushrooms and greens from the hedgerow

'The hen and the egg'

Onion and thyme/Goose berry juice

Green strawberries and saladroot/Sorrelsauce

Tartar and sorrel/Juniper and tarragon

Carrot and sea buck thorn

Not quite ready to forage.....