Noma to shut and reopen on urban farm

René Redzepi’s four times crowned “World’s Best Restaurant” Noma is to close and reopen on an urban farm in Copenhagen in 2017.

Noma will hold its last service at its current location on New Year’s Eve in 2016

As reported by The New York Times, the last service at the two Michelin-starred restaurant’s current location will take place on New Year’s Eve in 2016.

Noma’s new home will be in Copenhagen’s Christiania neighborhood where head chef and owner René Redzepi will abandon the tasting menu format.

René Redzepi

“It makes sense to have your own farm as a restaurant of this calibre. We could just stay put and do what we do, but I genuinely think that we won’t progress. We’ve allowed the format of a tasting menu to dictate what we cook,” he told the paper.

Redzepi plans to put a greenhouse on the roof of the farm, which will include a floating field on a giant raft. He will also employ a full-time farmer to look after the land.

Reflecting its new rural location, Redzepi will stay faithful to the seasons, serving vegetables grown on the farm during the spring and summer months, wild game, foraged mushrooms and berries in the autumn and seafood in the winter.

“How are you going to give a bowl of spinach the same pleasure that a steak gives? That is something that we will deal with,” Redzepi told TNYT.

Taking all elements of the dining experience into account, even the place settings are set to change with the seasons.

Prior to the move, Noma will relocate to Sydney’s harbourside Barangaroo precinct for a 10-week residency in January 2016, where dishes will focus on seasonal Australian produce.

The New York Times reports that Redzepi is planning to open a second, more casual restaurant in Copenhagen where Kristian Baumann will head up the kitchen.

Noma was crowned the World’s Best restaurant three years in a row from 2010 to 2012 and scooped the accolade again in 2014, but was toppled this year by El Celler de Can Roca in Girona.