(upbeat music)
- Noma, it's a place people recognize for being named
the best restaurant in the world four times.
The original Noma opened in Copenhagen 15 years ago,
surprising guests with its inventive offerings
like dishes disguised as herb pots
and careful displays of roasted bone marrow
with edible flowers.
Chef Rene Redzepi built meals from nature
using seasonal ingredients found in the Nordic region.
The style is now called New Nordic cuisine.
It has granted Noma two Michelin stars
and has put Copenhagen's food scene on the map.
In 2010, Noma was voted number one restaurant in the world
by Restaurant Magazine
and then again in 2011 and 2012 and 2014.
Two other restaurants have taken the title in 2015 and 2016.
All the while, though, Noma has hovered near the top.
But not too long ago,
Chef Rene Redzepi shut everything down,
and this latest move could give them back the title.
Noma closed at the end of 2016
before opening its new space in February 2018
roughly a mile from the original location.
It's received visits from foodies around the world
and A-list celebrities like Justin Timberlake.
- It's different 15 years in.
People expect more.
I mean, they expect to have maybe the meal of a lifetime
and an experience as well on top of that.
- [Taryn] But why would a chef
risk his profitable business to start all over?
- I was getting a bit annoyed with how we were working.
I felt the routine was stifling us,
and we should probably be looking for a new place
to see if that could give us something.
- The new location seats 42 people,
each seat costing 2,250 Krona or about $340 U.S. dollars,
but the biggest change is in what everyone comes to taste,
the restaurant's three seasonal menus.
Vegetable-based in the summer, seafood-based in the winter,
and meat-based in the fall.
Each dish is thought out carefully
and focused on local ingredients found in the Nordic region.
- In the very beginning, we have a brainstorm.
Okay, what could be fun to have on this menu?
And then we just started tagging it.
So we always have at least a couple of weeks
where we're not actually putting things on a plate
and trying to make dishes
but where we just investigate
all these creative ideas that we have.
- [Taryn] Some of those ideas include
the celeriac and truffle shawarma
and rose-scented cake resembling a small herb pot.
The team hopes the seasonal menus
will encourage guests to visit Noma more often,
but they'll have to wait another year
to see if they will make the best restaurant list again.
- In a restaurant like this, it's about the everyday.
It's about finding the balance
between creativity and production
and your team and hard work, low pay,
family, ingredients, suppliers.
It's a network of a lot of things happening,
and sometimes people recognize it in an extraordinary way,
and you get to be changed forever like our restaurant did
when we first became number one,
but I still truly, wholeheartedly believe
if you go to work with only that thing in mind,
you won't last long in this trade.
- [Taryn] As for whether starting over was worth it
despite taking some pretty big risks along the way.
- Of the 15 years we've been open,
this is the moment where we have the most requests.
I stopped counting actually
but probably in the thousands every day
of people waiting for a table.
- [Taryn] So it's been good for business,
but it's done even more to motivate Rene and his team.
- I don't know how I can explain
except that it's like a hunger.
I feel like I just can't stand still.
Sometimes you see or you hear a song or you see a movie
or something that makes you wanna do something
and change your life or do something.
I feel like that almost all the time.
(upbeat music)