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Noma, one of the world’s best restaurants, is closing

After 20 years of pioneering New Nordic dining, the Copenhagen landmark is set to close its doors

Grace Beard
Written by
Grace Beard
Travel Editor
Noma in Copenhagen
Photograph: Shutterstock
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Fine-dining fanatics, we have bad news. Noma – the three-Michelin-starred Copenhagen restaurant synonymous with the city’s culinary revolution – has announced it’s shutting up shop.

Noma is renowned for its inventive take on Nordic cuisine, which (under influential head chef René Redzepi) went on to influence high-end tables around the world. Its menus focus on hyper-seasonal ingredients, rotating three times a year to showcase game in autumn, seafood in winter and spring, and vegetables in summer. 

While the restaurant still gets its fair share of plaudits – securing the top spot on the coveted World’s 50 Best Restaurants list in 2021 – Redzepi told the New York Times that the model on which Noma is built has become ‘unsustainable’.

Redzepi cites the unsavoury hours and demanding working conditions involved in running a fine-dining restaurant as one of the reasons behind the closure. (Gruelling conditions for staff at Noma and other top Copenhagen restaurants were the subject of a newspaper exposé last summer.)

According to a post on Noma’s website‘winter 2024 will be the last season of [N]oma as we know it’. So what’s next?

Big things, apparently. In 2025, the restaurant will transform into a ‘giant lab’, where they'll continue experimenting with flavours and ingredients to create innovative new dishes and food concepts. The website promises Noma will continue serving guests with pop-ups around the world, and, eventually, ‘a season in Copenhagen’.

For the next two years, Noma will continue to serve those lucky enough to nab a table at its Copenhagen establishment. If you want to experience one of the world’s best restaurants before it turns into something completely different, you can (attempt to) book a table here.

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