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“The guests dining at Noma should feel a sensation of time and place in their very bones,” René Redzepi says in the introduction to to his 2010 book on Nordic cuisine. Just a decade ago, when Noma opened on Copenhagen’s waterfront, the young chef committed to a bold new brand of Nordic cooking that was wildly innovative yet deeply rooted in the seasons and the natural environment, using ingredients from Scandinavia.
Today, with its Michelin stars and place at the top of _Restaurant Magazine’_s list of the world’s best restaurants, it’s hard to overstate the impact of Noma: chefs from Chicago to Beijing offer foraging tours; ingredients like hay ash, green strawberries, spruce shoots, and fermented this and that are suddenly part of the fine-dining vernacular; and riding on Noma’s buzz, Copenhagen has become an against-all-odds culinary capital drawing young chefs and foodies from around the world.
“I never imagined that one of the biggest joys of running this place would come from seeing people leave,” master-mentor Redzepi wrote earlier over e-mail, as he crisscrosses the globe promoting A Work in Progress, a new set of three books documenting a year in the life of the restaurant. Next week, he begins a book tour through seven North American cities, including a talk with Padma Lakshmi at New York’s 92nd Street Y on November 13. “As much as I get attached, it would be a real letdown if they didn’t at some point want to do their own thing. I’ve seen many times where a split can be treated like a bad divorce, since such a strong relationship develops with your sous-chefs. But it really should be like your best friend moving out of the shared apartment: the friendship continues.”
By the time Spain’s influential El Bulli (where Redzepi himself once worked) closed in 2011, Noma had become a finishing school of sorts for already accomplished chefs, taking up the mantle of **Ferran Adrià’**s educational kitchen. “They are forced out of their comfort zones, and by the time they leave, their minds work in a completely different way,” explains Matt Orlando, a former Noma chef, now heading up Amass in Copenhagen. “Noma produces chefs who have a different way of approaching cooking and how a restaurant should function.” At the core is Noma’s famed Saturday Night Projects, staff-only tastings at which the chefs create and get feedback on new dishes—gatherings meant to spark creativity and sharpen chefs’ sensibilities. “Just to work with René on a daily basis—everyone had all these things like liquid nitrogen, a hand blender, and cream—but the things that come out are kind of mind-blowing,” confirms Daniel Burns, who recently opened Brooklyn’s Luksus.
For his part, Redzepi, who shares the cover of next week’s international editions of Time with Momofuku’s David Chang and D.O.M’s Alex Atala, sees the work at Noma as part of a larger shift in the way the world looks at chefs. “Twenty years ago, cooking at all levels was, at the end of the day, a blue-collar, menial trade,” he says. “In the past three to five years, things have started to change dramatically. It’s not like it’s a white-collar trade yet, but let’s call it ‘hipster red.’ In these times of change, when a generation like mine is the gateway between the past and future, it’s even more vital and just plain nice to see these friends and colleagues grow around the world. We can process this craziness together.”
To celebrate Noma’s tenth anniversary and the release of A Work in Progress, Vogue.com caught up with four restaurants and their chefs who bring the Noma DNA to their own projects.
