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Rene Redzepi has revealed the shocking news that he will close Noma after the final service on New Year’s Eve 2016.
Speaking to the New York Times, Redzepi - who runs what is arguably the most influential restaurant of the past five years - told the paper that he plans to reopen on a new site, a sort of Noma.2, with their own farm at the centre.
The chef, who has four times topped the list of The World’s 50 Best Restaurants, says that Noma is still in it’s infancy and that now is time for a “dramatic evolution”.
Redzepi explained that “it makes sense to have your own farm, as a restaurant of this caliber”. The new location for Noma is in Copenhagen’s Christiania neighbourhood, an urban site covered in graffiti.
The idea is to build a farm to feed the restaurant which will give them even greater control over their supply chain. It’s a huge move from the Danish chef but as the MAD Symposium also step into their second stage with the news they will now be getting involved with food education in Denmark, it makes sense to see Noma also step into it’s next iteration.
This is a big and ballsy decision and Redzepi knows it, “ “It really, really, really, really makes me nervous,” he said, “I’m not afraid. But it does make me nervous.”
Along with the new site and farm, Redzepi says he plans to change the way menus are presented, stepping away from the rigid constraints of a tasting menu into a seasonally focused mixture. For example, in Fall the menu will focus on wild Game, in Spring and Summer it will be green and in winter it will focus on the sea. He also announced that during the Spring and Summer months Noma will become a vegetarian restaurant.
The news comes as somewhat of a surprise but it’s a perfect next step, a new challenge and something that is only going to drive Noma, Redzepi and his entire crew to bigger and better things.
