Noma 2.0 to shut its doors in 2024 and reopen with a fresh outlook
Rene Redzepi’s fine dining restaurant Noma will close its Copenhagen doors in 2024.
The announced closure comes amid controversy over its business model, which up until October 2022 used unpaid interns to service a global clientele that would fly halfway around the world for a $700 dining experience.
Noma chief operating officer and Aussie expat Ben Liebmann defended the model saying interns benefitted from the experience, while it allowed restaurants to continue to experiment and innovate.
Liebman, who was behind the licensing of the MasterChef franchise, did say, the decision to close was based on wider industry changes.
"Whether accelerated by a pandemic, scrutiny, or sustainability, the entire restaurant industry is changing.
"And irrespective of what accelerates that change, and irrespective of whether it has come to the industry later than it should, it is a positive, important, and necessary, step for the future."
Despite the closure of one of Australia’s top fine dining restaurants (named the best restaurant on the world five times), Redzepi does see a way forward for the fine dining industry.
"Young, creative chefs should not stop dreaming one bit. Fine dining isn't going anywhere. But if you want to stay creatively focused for decades and decades, you need to make sure that you – from the beginning – plan a viable financial model that can provide your restaurant with a strong organisational base. HR, management, R&D. Plan it from the beginning. Make sure you understand all of this," he told Good Food.
"I wish someone would have told me that 20 years ago as Noma was opening. People will always have to eat, we just need to set up the industry for success from the beginning and give chefs the same tools that other businesses thrive with."
Redzepi says he will continue to evolve.
"This expression of Noma, as a restaurant that serves 60-plus guests five days a week, may be coming to an end, but the very purpose of Noma as a vehicle for curiosity, creativity, and craft, is as strong and as vibrant as it has ever been. It is an evolution, and the latest in 20 years of evolution."
Noma will shut and reopen as something entirely new.
In 2016, it opened as a 10-week pop in in Sydney and had a lasting effect.
"I think the one great lesson that we took with us from Australia, was to go back to Denmark and learn more from the indigenous populations of Scandinavia – for example, the Sami tribe in northern Norway and Sweden. To learn how they live off the land, what plants and berries they consider to be delicious," he told Good Food.
Nomi legitimised native ingredient experiences in Australia and paved the way for acclaimed restaurants such as Attica in Melbourne and Adelaide's Orana.
There have been two iterations of Noma, with Noma 2.0 opening ion 2018 and focused on extensive gardens, a research lab, and a menu revolving around seasonal change.
Noma 3.0 will likely become "a giant lab dedicated to the work of food innovation and the development of new flavours…"
Jonathan Jackson - 16-1-23
