Summers in Denmark are completely underrated. While the demi-monde flock to the St. Tropez or Ibiza (the countryside) and the beau-monde go to Croatia and Sardinia, the hectic social pissing contest makes these vacations into vocations.
Copenhagen is usually empty during the summer, as NordScans make the most out of the merry weather by going to the countryside. I was in Copenhagen last summer for the first time. It was doubly exciting that I was going to Noma. It’s the top restaurant in the world and takes almost a year to secure a reservation.
I had an outfit in tow. Then the proverbial cookie crumbled.
You know when you’re being set up on a blind date and you ask your friend if he’s hot. Your friend replies by ignoring your temerity and simply saying, “He’s funny.” Well, that’s what Noma is. It’s funny and interesting. However, there won’t be a second date on the horizon. There’s a big chance that you won’t even end up as friends.
You see, it’s just too bizarre. I love food. In my quiet moments, instead of thinking about having children or meeting a bleeding deadline, I think about my next meal. I like my meals simple, straightforward and heated. I find myself dreaming of roast chicken, steaks and pasta with butter and cheese (think Amelie). This is food you marry. It is food that will be part of your life until you die.
I must admit it was interesting, if you’re into grass, potted plants and live shrimp bathed in uni powder (you know, when they actually look like cockroaches) dipped in something called biodynamic cream. It sounded like a new product from Estee Lauder.
Personally, I find it hard to find kinship with vegetarians. I love a woman who rips through ribs and a man who is so confident with his masculinity that he can eat macaroni, bacon and cheese and own it. While Noma is not a vegetarian’s best friend, they sure give meat an inferiority complex.
The food in Noma is for people I don’t trust. I find it hard to believe when people say “It was the meal of my life!” I mean, like, how?
The restaurant is charming enough as it occupies an old warehouse on the waterfront in the Christianshavn neighborhood of central Copenhagen.
Given its architectural heritage, Noma reputedly embodies the soul of Scandinavian cuisine. Formally, the restaurant defines itself as Nordic-Scandinavian, epicurean code for creepy cuisine.
The restaurant itself is a low-key, no-frill space. Very Scandi, which I love. There are no white linens and dishes are served on plain wooden tables. They try to make you feel that you’re eating in the woods. The restaurant’s interior design is by Signe Bindslev-Henriksen. She is also known to have a really cool apartment.
The Scandi soul is captured through the spirit of the wait staff who are easygoing and friendly. Danes are the friendliest Scandis, or so I was told by Danish friends. I believe them; everyone is super-nice in Denmark!
Back to Noma talk. It is the kind of place that screams confidence in kitchen. It takes you 15 minutes to realize that, instead of confidence. it may veer more towards hubris. You realize fast enough that the forest has now turned into Hansel and Gretel’s turf.
The restaurant’s founders René Redzepi and Clau Meyer have attempted to redefine this Nordic cuisine. Maybe I’m just being a total nipper and I can’t quite grasp the concept of eating in a restaurant that serves food like it came from a museum gift shop.
What goes on below are my personal opinions. Remember, I’m no foodie. My level of being an epicurean expert is limited to my vast contribution to Food Spotting (an iPhone app that allows you to share with other people what you’re eating at the moment and its location). But I do have a stomach that rumbles and in this case it was a curious case akin to watching Melancholia by Danish director Lars Von Tier. It’s either you love it or hate it.
Noma attempts to reinterpret classic Viking food. What you get is surreal food. I think it’s really more of an experience rather than tummy intercourse. The reindeer moss appetizer hinted of things to come. I usually know a restaurant is good when the bread or amuse bouche is good. Instead we got something called Bulrush with goat’s curd and hazelnut praline. The dips were good but I wanted bread! I wear my pedantic badge of middle class taste proudly.
And WTF is Reindeer Moss? Did it come from its foot or something? Whatever it is. I surrendered to the pretension. The malt flatbread looked like stems from old Christmas ornaments. It surprisingly tasted like bread sticks but I did feel a little savage nibbling on it.
The cookies that came in sweet little tin cups were flavored with something called lardo (cured strips of fat flavored with herbs) and currant. That was interesting but you can just do one of them.
I must say I did enjoy the creative mussels that they served. The bottom part of the shell is edible as it is made of malt. Noma serves its food family-style and this was one dish we all quietly fought for.
The rye bread dish is boring and should be up my alley for its ordinariness. It’s like seeing Josh Groban at Coachella. Misplaced, and “eh?”
Another odd dish was the fruit roll-up “dumplings.” They tasted like fruit but after everything I’d been through in this Heironymous Bosch Garden of Earthly Delights, why now?
Now here’s something I really loved: the pickled and smoked eggs which were, surprisingly, a classic and unmolested Danish dish. I even ate my seatmate Niklas’s eggs because he didn’t like eggs. Who the hell doesn’t like eggs? He had no soul, I concluded silently.
Then came the radish, soil and herb dish. It looked like a potted plant and even when they said it was edible with an interesting creamy center it was an immediate “No, thanks.” I ate a bit of it and I felt like a homeless person scrounging for food.
The toast with herbs, smoked cod roe and what I believe is vinegar was flavorful but kinda boring next to its eccentric cousins.
There were so many dishes that I just lost track and wondered if there was a part where the plate itself would be edible too. It was like watching an esoteric performance art. You needed to pretend that you love it but, deep in your heart, you don’t really get it.
The “Hen and the Egg” dish (eggs!) was the most exciting one. We got to fry the egg and were assured that it didn’t come from chickens from Pluto. The meat dishes were also somewhat yum, like the venison but it came in the size of a pink pearl eraser. It was the proverbial carrot for the bunnies. Meat however has an inferiority complex when it comes to Noma land.
The oysters were also lovely and I must say its strangeness was very intriguing. It was the Tilda Swinton of the bunch. It’s an oyster perched on top of weird crap like elderberries, and wild onion seeds. The dish was decorated with pebbles and shells and truly smelled like the ocean.
Noma is proud for its approach of doing wild culture. The term “wild culture” is self-explanatory and the food is beyond organic. The wild part is closer to the truth.
We all tried to act sophisticated, we all sat quietly ooh-ing and ahh-ing the dishes. I mean fashionable people don’t really eat much. right? Given all the hype there was a strong and unmistakable falsetto of fear in these hums. We all looked at each other and suddenly found camaraderie as we were served brown cheese with freeze-dried cranberries.
Serenity now. I have never been so scared of food.
To make light of the situation we started contests on who finished their dishes first. Then the sexual innuendoes came out: razor clams inserted in a slit of asparagus. Marcel Proust would have been so embarrassed to be upstaged by a far more thoughtful disaster in the art of ejaculation.
The shrimp dish was the major circus act. It was wiggling and ready for molar murder. I couldn’t do it. I ended up making Niklas, my seatmate and egg donor, eat it. Sometimes this is when death becomes a positive thing. I don’t like food that wiggles and is capable of still having dreams for the future.
I don’t know what happened during dessert. I think I had a cigarette for dessert (I quit smoking this year, FYI). I heard it was chocolate-covered crisps. Pass.
Noma may not be for everyone. It is something to talk about. Just like the end of a really fun but odd date, I won’t be calling again.