[ad_1]
In January 2023, René Redzepi announced the closure of his world-renowned Copenhagen dining room Noma – a five-time No. 1 winner on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list and one of the hardest tables to book on Earth – At the end of 2024.
Now, the chef and co-owner of Noma is offering diners a reprieve. And a new place to consider. Noma will return to Kyoto for a second residency at the end of the year. The 10-week engagement will once again take place at the Ace Hotel Kyoto and run from October 8 to December 18.
And when Redzepi and his team return to Copenhagen, they won’t immediately close the doors to the storied complex. Instead they will extend Noma 2.0 to spring 2025. The chef, who divides the year into three, not four, seasonal menus – vegetable; Sports and Forests; And Oceana – will be serving a seafood menu for the last few months before Noma 2.0 goes live, actually they say, at an undisclosed date.
Reservations for Kyoto will open on May 14 through the Noma newsletter. This year’s Kyoto menu and drink pairings will cost 840 euros ($912) plus a 10% service charge; Last year it was 775 euros plus 10%.
There will be seven services a week, four dinners and three lunches, for a total of 70 meals. About 100 team members and their families, around the same number as last year, will come to Kyoto; Noma in Copenhagen will be closed during that time, although Noma Projects, which produces products such as smoked mushroom garum, will continue to operate.
Noma may be returning to the same location where the inaugural event took place a year ago, but don’t expect the same shabu shabu with seaweed and tomatoes-as-rose that was served last year. “Well, Kyoto in autumn will definitely offer a different experience; “Seasonality plays an important role with its 72 micro-seasons,” Redzepi said over email. “Game meat has become available, and it’s high season for crab, which brings a completely different range of ingredients. We’re also hoping to have wild mushrooms.” But the menu and specific dishes are still under wraps, the chef says, though he does confirm that he’s pre-ordered some of the aforementioned game meats and crabs from local vendors and “forest Have collected some things from.”
Redzepi says his team also dried 10,000 brightly colored koyo (autumn leaves), presumably to set the scene for the fall menu in the Ace restaurant’s dining room.
As for the expansion of Noma 2.0 in Copenhagen, Noma chief operating officer Lena Hennessy says it was a function of the Kyoto pop up timing. “We wanted to travel, come back and do another season in Copenhagen. “We love our home here.”
Has Redzepi thought about moving his residency to a new country, since he’s already done Kyoto and hasn’t recreated pop ups at the sites of other previous residencies, including Tokyo and Tulum? In a word, no. “As a chef, a culinary professional and a food lover, I see Japan as one of the highest altars one can visit. The level of knowledge, depth of technology, and longevity of traditions that continue to flourish is simply mind-boggling,” he says.
He also noted that the original Noma Kyoto pop up was planned to be held in autumn 2022 before the pandemic; When Japan’s strict lockdown protocols made this impossible, it was moved to spring, an arguably less abundant season for production. This left Redzepi with “unfinished business”. He adds, “So, we started planning another season midway through our first pop-up, looking for a different experience with a new seasonal menu and an opportunity to redesign the space “
But still, Redzepi says, “I’m sure that once we finish this upcoming pop-up, we’ll find ourselves reflecting on what we didn’t do, what we didn’t discover, And what aspects did we work on? “It doesn’t make any sense at all.” Which some may read as a hint that this is not his last residence in Kyoto.
As it happens, Hennessy says Noma will definitely tour to other locations even after the current version of the restaurant closes in the spring. “There are residencies in the works,” she confirms. Hennessey says that similarly, Noma in Copenhagen will almost certainly continue to feed people. “This is not a process of closing the doors quickly. Serving guests will continue to be a part of who we are.” Even though the chapter of vegetables, forests and seas will almost certainly end, the Noma team doesn’t know how to stop innovating. “We want to redefine ourselves as an organisation. Not in the format that people have become accustomed to. But feeding people, yes,” says Hennessy.
[ad_2]
