Noma – Preface

I do believe there is such a thing as over dining. Especially since moving to New York City, the bustling streets and hectic lifestyles also changed the way I dined. Outside from all the daily free meals from the Google office, dining out was anything but back to basics. The dining options in New York are endless, the choice and excitement of each restaurant, cafe, lounge bar or food truck are comparable to the line of ladies queuing up outside the latest meatpacking nightclub on a Tuesday night, discreetly staring at each other up and down as they walk past the velvet ropes after the desperate episodes of flirting with bouncers. The endless variety means you can easily never visit a place twice and still have plenty new discoveries lining up outside your door, hoping to impress you more than the last. Some arrogant, some beautifully presented, some authentic, some playing so hard to get, you just want to burn your wallet just to have a taste, only to discover that it was totally not worth the hype.

Slowly but surely, things all start to blur into the same experience. Sure, I have fun, I enjoy the food – did I really just blow $1200 on a mediocre seafood platter, pancakes and various bottles of champagne for a ridiculous disco brunch at Lavo? Did the tasting menu at Per Se, Le Bernadin, Jean George’s, Daniel and all other Michelin starred French establishments seemingly blur the lines of their different menus all into one expensive affair with a foie gras this, and caviar that, and let’s shave white truffle over a fat lobster tail mentality? Decadence can be delicious – but also as terribly boring as the poached eggs at Marea, with crab meat, sea urchin anglaise topped with sturgeon caviar on an over-soaked brioche bun, or the next designer Kobe beef burger with short ribs, shaved white truffles and foie gras butter. My newfound Manhattan lifestyle living in my tiny studio apartment, ordering my groceries online and having everything delivered to my doorstep has made me forget to truly slow down and appreciate what I’m eating, where it comes from, and how it was prepared.

Guilty as charged.

I’m perfectly aware that I haven’t contributed much content to my humble little website here. Food bored me. Restaurants bored me. And since I am no longer working in food service or hospitality, the regularity of dining at the restaurants and interacting with the chef afterwards to talk about ingredients has disappeared. I stopped caring and I stopped sharing my food experiences with you in writing and instead, focused more on the company of a meal rather than the food, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

My visit to Noma was as refreshing as being deprived of living near the Pacific Ocean during a five month snow filled winter – to diving head first into the icy blue ocean straight from Sydney airport during my last visit home. I had learnt to adapt, accept and enjoy what was around me, but as I was presented with each dish, I was excited again, I wanted to know more – more about everything I could possibly see, touch, smell, hear… taste. Curiosity of how each ingredient was picked and sourced returned to me, along with how it was prepared and cooked.

If I’ve compared all the restaurants I’ve visited in the states as of late to fashionable, model like figures lining up outside a hip nightclub in the meatpacking district, then Noma would be an exquisitely beautiful Nordic lady whose idea of nightlife involved nothing of dressing to impress, overpriced drinks and being seen. Her style is exquisite even if she’s wearing nothing but a wrinkled cotton dress; makeup would only dull her flawless natural beauty. She stops to smell and appreciate the flowers and doesn’t mind getting her hands dirty in the garden.

After 1.5 hours of F5-ing my browser at 4am in the morning (that’s pressing reload over and over again for the non-nerds out there), the booking system on www.noma.dk finally presented me with an electronic booking form. My hands were shaking and my heart was beating fast – one mistake and I would have to wait another two months for a few hour’s chance to make another reservation. Noma opens their online reservation system on the 1st day of every TWO months, at exactly 10am Copenhagen time. Traffic to the website will inevitably be frustrating for you. It can take anywhere from 5 minutes to 3 hours, depending on your luck, your F5-ing skills and your patience. My tip is that if you want it bad enough and you’re persistent – it will most definitely happen for you (unless you’re on a dial-up modem, and in which case you probably won’t be reading this anyway). A table for 4 was secured, a Saturday night dinner, on a long weekend. I started asking around for people to join me on this epic meal – most thought I was crazy. “Copen-where?”, flying all the way to Copenhagen “just for a dinner?!”.

The only sensible thing for me to do really, is to assemble the good ol’ elBulli crew back for a bi-yearly reunion. All four of us, flying in from different cities of the world – New York, London, Barcelona, Stuttgart… without evening thinking twice, before booking plane tickets to Copenhagen to orgiastically share our love for a gastronomic experience.

I can clearly see your cringed face, judging the girl who’s visited elBulli twice and now bored with dining until the next number one. Spoilt? Indeed I am. Wealthy? Not even close – but I do know how to save for the things that I want to experience, and thankfully, now nearing the age of 30, I no longer need to pick up waitressing shifts outside of my 9 to 5 job just to scrape every tip I get – and blowing 9 months of hard work on ONE meal, but I digress.

The four of us all arrived the beautiful city of Copenhagen on the morning of May 28, “to stop by for dinner”.

It was a cloudy, drizzly day in Copenhagen and totally opposite to what weather.com had informed me the night prior to my flight, thus making my tiny shirtdress almost inappropriate. In shivering cold, the flaming torches outside the door and the candles behind the large glass windows almost made the restaurant so much more inviting with a “come hither – it’s warm and toasty inside”.

Greeted by a friendly Aussie by the door, I felt like I was home again. There are currently six Aussies working at Noma at the moment (represent!) and they are all immensely enjoying their time there. I later on learnt from Sam Miller they try their best to assign staff to their “tables from home” so that customers feel a familiarity during their dining experience.

Next: Noma – The Menu