The world's best restaurant is Danish

Noma leads the trend in ‘cold climate cuisine’. Famous for taking truly seasonal and local ingredients, many of which are unheard of outside the Nordic region, and creating dishes such as radishes in edible soil that acutely demonstrate nature on a plate, the restaurant has quickly established itself as a place of pilgrimage. The restaurant is situated on Copenhagen’s dockside in a stylishly converted 18th century shipping warehouse.


Noma’s dishwasher Ali Sonko couldn't get a visa in time to attend the award ceremony in Britain. As a tribute to him, his colleagues wore T-shirts emblazoned with his portrait when they collected the prize. Photo: 50best2010.

Last year's 3rd place on the S. Pellegrino list has already made Noma a restaurant that people travel to Copenhagen to dine at. According to René Redzepi, 40 per cent of the guests visit the city with the specific purpose of dining at Noma. The day after the announcement of this year's winner, the booking system at Noma broke down. On its website, Noma expresses its gratitude for the huge interest:

“We are incredibly happy and proud to have won the award, but what touches us most of all is the astonishing amount of congratulatory messages we have received (…) However, we are sorry to inform you that it is completely impossible for us to meet the number of reservation requests we have received. We have had several thousand emails and phone calls and so many attempts at online reservations that our system cannot handle any more online bookings.”

There is hope ahead however. Noma is putting great efforts into making a new booking system that can match the demand for a restaurant that has been voted the world's best.

AZ

www.noma.dk

Read more about the award on www.theworlds50best.com

This article is from Focus Denmark Magazine (June 2010)



THE KEY INGREDIENT IS TIME

  Classic Danish food is not fast food. Sometimes it takes days to prepare a dinner and to make a dish taste just right.