The best restaurant in the world closes: Noma in Copenhagen

The multi-starred Noma restaurant in Copenhagen will close in 2024. Chef René Redzepi spoke of the unsustainable costs and rhythms.

The Noma restaurant in Copenhagen, Denmark, will close its doors in 2024. The owner himself, the starred chef, gave the news René Redzepi. As reported by the New York Times, the chef would have made this choice because the restaurant’s costs and manpower would have become unsustainable. The chef also revealed that the idea of ​​closing the restaurant has been around for a couple of years already and that “it will materialize in 2024, with the desire for a total reorganization of workplaces and staff”.

Noma, closes the best restaurant in the world

The Noma restaurant in Copenhagen has become very well known in the restaurant world. The name, an acronym for Nordic Mad, means “food” in Danish and its menu is entirely made up of products from Scandinavia. Its offer ranges from reindeer stew to black North Sea prawns, as well as gourmet dishes based on lichens and berries. Noma opened in 2004 and has since been recognized five times since The World’s 50 Best Restaurants as the best restaurant in the world (in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2014 and 2021). Furthermore, in 2021, the Michelin Guide awarded him the third Michelin star, the same one that Cannavacciuolo obtained in 2022.

The reason that led chef René Redzepi to close the restaurant is the incredible unsustainability, both in terms of prices and on the “human” side. Due to Covid, the losses in turnover amounted, only last year, to one million euros. In addition to this, keeping more than 100 employees and being the chef in a restaurant like this, leads to considerable stress and pressure.

What will Noma become

All those who love good food and dreamed of dining at least once in this multi-starred restaurant will have to hurry before the early closing, which will not be definitive but should last at least a few years. For now, Noma will transform itself into an agricultural research facility and continue to develop new dishes and products for its e-commerce operation, the Noma Project.

Noma 3.0, so called this new projectwill become “a giant laboratory, a test kitchen dedicated to food innovation and the development of new flavours”.

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