Noma — the brainchild of Danish mastermind chef René Redzepi — has been named the best restaurant in the world four times. For 10 weeks, starting today, Redzepi will be cooking his award-winning tasting menu at a pop-up version of his restaurant in Sydney, Australia.
More than 27,000 eager diners are currently on the wait list, each one of them willing to shell out the $339 per person that Noma is asking for its unique, bizarre, and otherworldly cuisine. When reservations opened, it sold out in 90 seconds, making nearly $2 million in just a few minutes.
Redzepi is known for whipping up dishes that are hyper-local, crafted to artistic perfection, and above all, surprising. His main restaurant is based in Copenhagen, but he did a pop-up in Japan last January as well. The menu for this Australian version has been carefully guarded up til opening, but we know that he is a fan of some unusual Australian ingredients: think crocodile fat and fire ants.
Lucky diners from Down Under have been sharing their experiences on Instagram. Let's all celebrate Australia Day with a look at Redzepi's latest concoctions.
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First, the space. The Noma pop-up is in a Sydney neighborhood called Barangaroo, near the water. Inside, the restaurant is spacious, modern, and simply designed. It seats 56 at a time.
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The exterior is simple and unassuming, although altogether the pop-up took 6 months to come together. Noma's stark Scandinavian aesthetic makes a clean backdrop for the complex flavors Redzepi draws forth from the food.
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All of the ceramic tableware is locally crafted and commissioned just for this iteration of Noma. At Redzepi's first pop-up, in Japan, he did the same thing.
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