I’m going to be honest, I never thought I’d be eating at Noma. But, when an Instagram post said reservations for the Game & Forest season were going live on August 3rd 2021, I knew I had to secure one. Noma reservations are notorious for selling out ridiculously fast. So, I rushed to pick the first available day I could see on the website. And by some miracle, that day ended up being the same day that Noma was announced as the Best Restaurant in the World.
I imagine the atmosphere at Noma is usually pretty electric, but being there when they announced Noma as the World’s Best Restaurant was something else. It was so cool seeing all the staff celebrating together. And hey, we got a free glass of champagne out of it. Result.
Created by René Redzepi, Noma which encompasses New Nordic cuisine has gone on to win the Best Restaurant in the World 5 times and achieve 3 Michelin stars. But despite this, the thing that draws me to Noma is their creative approach to showcasing interesting ingredients from around the world. They’re able to take things that you’ve never thought to try before and serve a dish that makes you think, “Why am I not eating this all the time?”. And let’s not forget about their world-class fermentation lab. Here they create flavour bombs with things like peaso (pea miso), garum and koji. When you go here, you know you’re going to try a lot of stuff you’d taste nowhere else.
The food not only opens your mind to what the forests and fields of Denmark have to offer, but it also combines these Nordic flavours with those of Japan and Mexico. The result is a menu that truly encompasses what New Nordic cuisine is about.
Table of Contents
The Menu
Noma offers 3 different menus throughout the year depending on the season. The Ocean season runs at the start of the year, followed by the Vegetable season in the summer and finally the Game & Forest season for Autumn.
Eating in October meant I experienced the Game & Forest season. This celebrates autumnal flavours, and it’s the only Noma season where meat plays the “starring role”. The menu also has many preserved greens and flowers foraged over the summer, and mushrooms and berries from the forest. Being a “starring role”, I was hoping for a few more meat-focused dishes but at the same time, some of the vegetable dishes were my favourite.
In addition to the food, Noma offers a drink pairing. You can either pick the juice pairing, wine pairing or a combination of the two. We ended up choosing the latter, but if I came back, I’d definitely go for the full juice pairing. The juices just seem a lot more interesting to me than the wines (granted, my wine knowledge is terrible). For me, I’d much rather try the different juices that Noma makes in-house like mushroom tea, cloudberry juice and seaweed kombucha, rather than a random bottle of wine from some region I’ve never heard of before.
Our entire experience lasted just under 4 hours, consisting of 17 different dishes and 6 different juices and wines. We definitely could have finished the meal in almost half the time. However, halfway through the meal, we thought maybe we were going too quickly and slowed down to savour every bite from the best restaurant in the world.
1 – Reindeer Brain Custard
The meal began with a reindeer custard served in a reindeer skull. Turning the skull over revealed a reindeer brain topped with a chestnut gel. The custard reminded me of a rich stock from a roast dinner that gelatinized as it cooled. It was kind of strange and didn’t necessarily blow me away with an explosion of flavour. Instead, you mainly just taste the chestnut and brain in a smooth puree. However, the presentation is pretty hardcore, and nothing’s like eating a brain out of a skull.
2a -Stuffed Rose Hipberry
This dish and the next came out together. The first was a hipberry stuffed with a mirabelle plum and redcurrant paste. The hipberry was sour and quite chewy, with a sweetness coming from the plums.
2b – Plum
The next was a plum served with a buttery elderflower-pollen sauce.
3a – Pickled Quail Egg
The quail egg had been lightly boiled, smoked, pickled and topped with kombu seaweed. Inside the egg was a sauce made from egg yolk that had been cured and seasoned with whisky. The waiter told us to pick it up and eat it in one bite.
3b – Oregano Sandwich
This sandwich had a filling of confit garlic, ceps and truffles, wrapped in Mexican oregano. The oregano gave a spicy freshness that cut through the earthiness of the truffles.
4a – Wild Boar Speck and Chestnut Paste
The next two bites were from the barbecue. The first was a wild boar speck, seasoned with a paste of chestnuts and black garlic. You could squeeze the Japanese quince over the boar, similar to lemon, for a hint of acidity.
4b – Grilled Mushrooms
Grilled maitake mushrooms were the second bite from the barbecue. Also known as Hen of the Woods, these shrooms, brushed with a garum from the fermentation lab and sprinkled with pepper created a smoky and meaty bite.
5 – Apple Salad
Normally, with each dish, the chef or waiter would give a description of each of the different components. But with this dish, all we got was “Apple Salad” before they put down an unassuming apple in front of us. This was one of my favourite dishes of the night. Lifting the apple up caused a soup containing cubes of apple and flowers to flow out. The best part of the dish was that first taste, where the soup created a strange and unexpected tingling sensation in the mouth and you couldn’t help but smile.
6 – Yellow Beet Sashimi
This dish looked great, kind of reminding me of a sea anemone. I liked how the earthy nature of the beet contrasted with the delicate plating of the dish, showing that something like a beet can be just as refined as sashimi. Underneath the beets were cloudberries, which provided a welcome sweetness to the dish.
7 – Reindeer Ragout
Just after the halfway point, Noma gave us another taste of the reindeer. This time the reindeer’s meat, tongue (and maybe a penis?) were used in a ragout, served with a savoury granola.
8 – Pumpkin in Koji Butter
Alright, this pumpkin was something else. I don’t get what they did to make it so good, but it tasted flipping amazing. Cold smoked pumpkin wrapped in a cabbage leaf, served in a sauce of tomatoes and koji butter. The smoky flavour of the pumpkin and savouriness of the sauce took this pumpkin to levels that no pumpkin had gone before.
9 – Bear Dumpling
The bear dumpling was a play on the Danish aebleskiver, a sweet dumpling traditionally eaten at Christmas. This dumpling was cooked in bear fat and contained a mixture of bear and steamed vegetables. On the side was a spoon, drizzled in bear caramel. The waiter told us to first lick the spoon and then eat the dumpling with our hands.
10 – Whole Cooked Wild Duck
This dish felt like the main meal of the night. Next to the wild mallard duck breast was a thinly cut hazelnut feather and a spinach sandwich, filled with truffle. The duck was so tender, and the black truffle sauce gave a rich depth to the dish. Individually, each component tasted fantastic but as a whole, they didn’t seem to cohesively form a dish. Should I make a bite by putting a piece of duck on the spinach sandwich or dip the feather into the truffle sauce? I guess like the earlier courses, Noma encourages you to just go for it and eat the dish however you want to eat it which is part of the fun.
11 – Pine Salad
Served alongside the duck was a salad containing various fruits, quince, leaves and different elements of pine, including a surprisingly tender baby pine cone.
11 – Mushroom Broth with Sumac
Finishing off the savoury dishes was a mushroom broth, served with a sumac flower from the restaurant’s garden. The waiter told us to use the flower like a sponge to soak up the mushroom broth and then to suck on the sumac. The sourness and bitterness of the flower cut through the earthiness of the mushroom broth, providing a palate cleanser for the dessert courses.
12 – Buttermilk and Scoby
A buttermilk parfait topped with a kombucha scoby and a candied lemon syrup started off the dessert courses. To be honest, this dish didn’t taste of too much, and maybe it wasn’t meant to, but I was expecting a bit more. The scoby had a fun, chewy texture but the balls of parfait seemed to be a bit too hard, making it a bit awkward to eat.
13 – Saffron Ice Cream with Poppy Seeds
Next up was saffron ice cream with poppy seeds and layers of dark Mexican chocolate. The rich and slightly bitter chocolate balanced the complex, floral flavour of saffron. Again though, like the parfait, I thought this ice cream was too hard, and I had to put in quite a bit of effort to actually scoop out the ice cream and break through the layers of chocolate.
14 – Reindeer Marrow Caramel
Finally, ending the game and forest menu was a fudge made from reindeer bone marrow, accompanied by blueberries and marigold. A great way to end the evening, providing a complex buttery and savoury sweetness. I couldn’t help but scrape the bone clean.
Drinks Pairing
At Noma, you have the choice of either a wine or a juice pairing or a combination of the two. We opted for the latter, so we got 3 different juices and 3 different wines.
The juices we tried were seaweed kombucha, mushroom tea with chile de Arbol, and cloudberry juice. The seaweed kombucha had a matcha-like flavour with a slightly salty edge to it. The mushroom tea was my favourite juice, with earthy notes and a strong smokiness from the chillies. The cloudberry juice accompanied our desserts. It was a sweet and slightly tart drink, with what I guess was the flavour of cloudberries.
I don’t have too much information about the wines we were given. However, we started off with champagne, followed by an orange wine and finally a red wine to pair with the duck.
The Experience
Noma has a pretty magical atmosphere. As soon as we arrived we were escorted out of the rain into a grass greenhouse. Inside a cosy log fire had been lit and they served us hot basil tea, whilst we waited for our table. Once our table was ready, we exited the greenhouse through Noma’s gardens, full of flowers, fruits and vegetables that would feature on the menu. We entered the restaurant through large wooden doors and walked into the kitchen where the entire kitchen staff greeted us.
The actual dinner service was like a well-oiled machine. There was rarely ever a pause between courses unless someone at the table had to go to the toilet. For each dish, we received an explanation from one of the chefs, and it was really cool to see their enthusiasm for their food.
The only thing my table wasn’t a fan of was when a group next to us got an extra dish that wasn’t on the menu. I’ve heard from other blogs about how sometimes other tables get preferential treatment at Noma, so I guess it was probably that. The actual dish they got was a duck brain served in the head of the duck, something which has appeared on a Noma menu before and something which I would have loved to have had on this year’s menu. Despite this, the rest of the service was great. The waiters’ attention to detail was spot on, and they were extremely generous with topping up our drinks.
As the night drew to a close we were offered some cocktails, of which we ordered a whiskey plum sour. After taking in the reality of eating at 2021’s World’s Best Restaurant, we decided to round off the evening with 3 glasses of mezcal from Noma’s Mexico pop-up.
A Tour of Noma
After the meal and the drinks, the staff gave us a tour of the kitchens so we could get an idea of how they operated. We got to see fermentation rooms containing projects like a squid ink miso as well as various garums.
Once our meal concluded, the staff gave us a tour of the kitchens so we could get an idea of how they operated. A waiter took us through the building to a room where many of Noma’s fermentations were stored. Some things we saw were fresh spirulina miso with barley koji and a squid ink miso with rice koji. Following this, the waiter showed the garum room. Walking into that room felt like you were walking into somewhere in the tropics; the air was so thick and humid and a rich and meaty smell surrounded you.
Finally, we were shown the staff kitchen and our guide explained how the interns were responsible for cooking staff meals. At Noma, these staff meals can be an opportunity for the staff to show something from their background.
And with that, our Noma experience was over. We decided to walk to the centre of Copenhagen and enjoy a drink at Taphouse – go here for great beers.
Closing Thoughts
After finishing your meal here, you can see why Noma was voted the Best Restaurant in the World. You can’t get food like here anywhere else. It opens your eyes to flavours from around the globe and the service is world-class. Some of the 17 different courses didn’t quite hit the mark flavour-wise, but you have to admire the amount of skill and technique to construct these dishes. There were a number of standout dishes. But surprisingly, these were mainly the vegetarian ones like the apple salad and pumpkin in koji butter. If I wasn’t already excited to return to Noma, the Summer vegetable season is now on my bucket list.
Pricing and Details
Menu: £313 / $465 / DKK 2800
Juice Pairing: £111 / $152 / DKK 1000
Address: Refshalevej 96, 1432 København K, Denmark
Book here: https://noma.dk/reservations/
Looking for Accommodation near Noma?
There isn’t much accommodation in direct vicinity to Noma. So, it’s probably best to stay close to the attractions in the centre of Copenhagen and get a taxi or public transport to Noma. Warning: Copenhagen is expensive. I can’t believe I can’t find a decent “Mid-Range” property below £50!
Budget: Generator Copenhagen – 8-Bed Mixed Dorm, kr200 / £23 / $28
Mid-Range: Wakeup Copenhagen Bernstorffsgade – Standard Room, kr775 / £89 / $109
Luxury: NH Collection Copenhagen – Superior Double, kr1650 / £189 / $230
Thanks for reading, and hopefully this has tempted you to take a trip to Noma!
If you liked this post, be sure to check out our review of Central, the Best Restaurant in Latin America.
