Noma to close at the end of 2024 to reinvent itself.

[Anna N]

The Copenhagen restaurant Noma, one of the world’s top eateries, with three Michelin stars, will close at the end of 2024 to reinvent itself as a food laboratory.

“To continue being Noma, we must change … Winter 2024 will be the last season of Noma as we know it,” the restaurant’s representatives wrote in a post on Instagram.

 

“We are beginning a new chapter,” they said.

“In 2025, our restaurant is transforming into a giant lab, a pioneering test kitchen dedicated to the work of food innovation and the development of new flavours, one that will share the fruits of our efforts more widely than ever before.”

Click

Edited January 10, 2023 by Anna N
To fix broken link. (log)

[gfweb]

Didn't Noma already have a "lab"? But whatever. 

 

Reading the accounts of RR saying how unsustainable this sort of cooking is, how can he go on for two years after making the decision? But whatever 

[TicTac]

Smells like some marketing genius at work.

 

Do half the dinners per year (or a fraction) - charge exponentially more to make up for lost covers, so essentially making the same revenue for a fraction of the actual costs.

 

Bravo.

 

[heidih]

Eater's article  "You were never going to eat at Noma anyway" gave me a chuckle https://www.eater.com/23546852/noma-closing-you-were-never-going

[heidih]

Frank Bruni's take  https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/10/opinion/noma-closing-fine-dining-redzepi.html

[AlaMoi]

Copenhagen has enough tourists / visitors (covid excepted....) that would easily support a starred resto.

so whether this is a financial 'we're going broke' decision or an ethereal "we must better mankind" decision remains to be seen.

 

do note - how the new "cooking invention center" will be funded is quite absent from the announcements....

[Katie Meadow]

9 hours ago, heidih said:

Frank Bruni's take  https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/10/opinion/noma-closing-fine-dining-redzepi.html

Saw that piece in the paper this morning. I have a great fondness for Frank Bruni. 

[heidih]

9 hours ago, Katie Meadow said:

Saw that piece in the paper this morning. I have a great fondness for Frank Bruni. 

Me too.  His honesty in Born Round was touching.

His opinion poiece on Noma held validity ffor me because he had spent time with Redzepi.

[farcego]

So he is following the steps of Ferran Adria!

 

Surely this has to do with being highly creative.  I am sure at some point they have to move forward. Like I always say, creative people are like lab rats, They need constant or regular environment enrichment or they became frustrated. At some point, even if they just open for a few months per year, it became boring to be in front of the same dishes and they need something else.

 

Best of luck for him, I am sure he does not need money so he will be doing what he really wants to!

[Margaret Pilgrim]

@farcego  you suggest an interesting paradox.   People flock to the ultimate Michelin restaurants to experience their cutting edge dishes.   But followers expect to sample their signature dishes.  The razor's edge, so to speak.   

[Dr. Teeth]

On 1/12/2023 at 3:13 PM, AlaMoi said:

Copenhagen has enough tourists / visitors (covid excepted....) that would easily support a starred resto.

so whether this is a financial 'we're going broke' decision or an ethereal "we must better mankind" decision remains to be seen.

 

do note - how the new "cooking invention center" will be funded is quite absent from the announcements....

Lemme tell you a long self indulgent story to answer your question.

 

Maybe four years ago Rene Redzepi and David Zilber, the chef who runs his fermentation lab were touring in support of their fermentation cookbook.   Mrs Dr Teeth (MDT) and I went to see them at American University.   We were probably by a decade and change the oldest folks in the room and the only ones not currently in the industry.    
 

This gets us signed up on a mailing list.   Two things happen from this: 1) because we were on this mailing list, and probably because MDT ordered me some stuff off it, when he announced the closure he opened reservations for 2022 early.   MDT booked me a 72 hour trip for a significant birthday where we flew in and hit Noma, Geramium, the winter markets, 3-4 national museums, Warpig and the Mikkeler Brewery (greatest trip of my life should have food blogged it). 2) we were afforded the chance to purchase some of his new line of fermented products aimed squarely at well heeled foodies.

 

So MDT has bought be some of these products, including a “smoky mushroom garum,” and “rose hip vinegar.”   They are excellent, but even with the understanding that this is a safe space where $500 knives and $400 sauciers are not questioned, I am embarrassed to say how much she spent on them.

 

I suspect he will hawk these as best he can until the momentum from Noma branding slows down.   I’m going to predict a line of slightly lower end, less challenging high end restaurants featuring them, sort of like Atelier Robouchon, will follow.

 

 

[AlaMoi]

culinary/cooking schools usually have a "student run" resto - gives them real world experience for the 'heat of battle' and 'how to serve soup without spilling it on the customer' type stuff.

 

I was thinking perhaps they'll do similar 'fixed price catch of the day' kinda' thing with all the new flavors and dishes developed . . . ?

 

we had a community college type culinary 'student resto' thing here - collapsed during covid - I've been watching to see if they bring it back.

[blue_dolphin]

6 hours ago, Dr. Teeth said:

...

So MDT has bought be some of these products, including a “smoky mushroom garum,” and “rose hip vinegar.”   They are excellent, but even with the understanding that this is a safe space where $500 knives and $400 sauciers are not questioned, I am embarrassed to say how much she spent on them.

 

I suspect he will hawk these as best he can until the momentum from Noma branding slows down. 

...

 

Yes, Evan Kleiman interviewed Redzepi late last year when he was making the rounds flogging his recent book Noma 2.0: Vegetable, Forest, Ocean (eG-friendly Amazon.com link).  Of course, there was no announcement at that time but he hinted pretty strongly  at this sort of thing - developing and selling products - among other pursuits.  The interview can be found here.

 

[Alex]

On 1/12/2023 at 2:46 PM, heidih said:

Frank Bruni's take  https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/10/opinion/noma-closing-fine-dining-redzepi.html

 

A "good riddance"-ish article from a different angle.

 

Quote

But for those of us in the restaurant industry, Noma’s announcement felt less like a seismic event and more like the dampened thud of a silver spoon falling on a plush dining-room carpet.

...

Despite Noma’s global reputation and eye-popping prices, the restaurant has depended heavily on uncompensated labor. The Financial Times has reported that, in its last year of operations before the pandemic, the restaurant typically had 34 paid cooks—and about 30 unpaid interns. Only in October, after nearly two decades in business, did Noma start paying the people who painstakingly prep and stage its food for presentation to customers.

 

In any other industry, this would go without saying: A business that builds wealth and renown without paying anything, much less a living wage, to nearly half its workers is not worth celebrating no matter how exceptional the output. But ever since Noma started racking up Michelin stars and topping world’s-best lists, the rest of the food world has looked to it as the embodiment of what a perfect, modern fine-dining establishment should be.

[Anna N]

1 hour ago, Alex said:

and about 30 unpaid interns

Without necessarily condoning this business model, I still find myself wondering just how many of these interns were handcuffed to their stations. 

[heidih]

1 hour ago, Anna N said:

Without necessarily condoning this business model, I still find myself wondering just how many of these interns were handcuffed to their stations. 

I do not recall the sources but it has been written about and compared to the rather brutal apprentice system that was and maybe is still in Europe. The chance to have such training on yiour resume is often the price of admission to elite work spaces. Happens in other professions as well.  I am not commenting on the morality of it but there is a bigger picture.

[blue_dolphin]

Quote

In any other industry, this would go without saying: A business that builds wealth and renown without paying anything, much less a living wage, to nearly half its workers is not worth celebrating no matter how exceptional the output.

 

1 hour ago, Anna N said:

Without necessarily condoning this business model, I still find myself wondering just how many of these interns were handcuffed to their stations. 

 

Along those lines, the practice of unpaid (or minimally paid)  interns expected to work long hours at elite institutions may be more common than the author is aware of.  It's pretty common for academic research labs in the sciences to have unpaid or minimally paid undergraduates, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows or visiting scientists competing for the opportunity to toil away in laboratories for long hours.  Students may or may not be getting academic credit but all of them are generally doing it to both learn and to buff their CVs either with authorship on publications or just being able to list a stint working with a renown professor, handcuffs not required!

 

What I've said above completely overlooks the wealth building aspect of whatever renown entity these interns are slaving for so I realize there are differences but I suspect the Noma interns are similar in wanting to learn from a prestigious chef and add that to their resumes as @heidih just said. 

[heidih]

Esquire's take  https://www.esquire.com/food-drink/food/a42476466/noma-copenhagen-closing-stagiaires/?

Edited January 19, 2023 by heidih (log)

[Dave the Cook]

50 minutes ago, heidih said:

Esquire's take  https://www.esquire.com/food-drink/food/a42476466/noma-copenhagen-closing-stagiaires/?

 

That's the best essay on noma's closing that I've read yet.

[gfweb]

5 hours ago, Dave the Cook said:

 

That's the best essay on noma's closing that I've read yet.

Yup 

[liuzhou]

A theory. Shoot it down if you wish.

 

Restaurants like Noma appeal to a very small number of people who are interested, willing and able to pay their prices. Usually as a one-off, I'd guess. How many repeat customers fo they really get? I'd bet on few to zero. They arent picking up walk-ins, that's for sure.

So once they work through that tiny clientele where else can they go? Bust? Or do something else? Same as El Bulli.

Edited January 20, 2023 by liuzhou (log)

[FauxPas]

 

Vivian Howard starts with Noma but then talks about Chef and the Farmer's closing and re-opening, in this NY Times article. 

 

Some of these folks should check out @gfron1's model. Fine dining doesn't necessarily require all that expensive equipment, for example. 

 

[Kerala]

5 hours ago, liuzhou said:

A theory. Shoot it down if you wish.

 

Restaurants like Noma appeal to a very small number of people who are interested, willing and able to pay their prices. Usually as a one-off, I'd guess. How many repeat customers fo they really get? I'd bet on few to zero. They arent picking up walk-ins, that's for sure.

So once they work through that tiny clientele where else can they go? Bust? Or do something else? Same as El Bulli.

El Bulli and Noma had/have very long waiting lists. There are lots of people who genuinely enjoy this stuff as food, or want to experience something new, or want to be fashionable, or have bought the hype, or think this would be a suitable meal for a landmark event in their lives. It's literally a limited number, but i think it's sufficient to keep a few restaurants of this type going almost indefinitely.

There's a lot of money out there looking to be spent. I'm not so sure they couldn't hike the price enough to pay their interns.

[liuzhou]

6 hours ago, Kerala said:

El Bulli and Noma had/have very long waiting lists.

 

 

But very few covers, so long is relative. And runs out eventually.