A rather long lunch...

Noma, Copenhagen, Denmark

So finally I made it to Noma, now officially the best the restaurant in the World according to "The S.Pellegrino World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2010" and what an exhilaratingly long lunch we were in for. Everything about this place is relaxed but with the ultimate professionalism and confidence in what they are doing. It was great to be greeted by so many new smiling faces and a few familiar ones from my last Copenhagen visit on our arrival at the restaurant after braving the fierce wind outside.The menu chosen for us was unbelievable and we couldn’t have asked for more, it lived up to everything I was hoping for but also expecting after their recent well-publicised accolades. I’ve decided that my words really can’t do much justice to everything we ate so I’m going to try (yes try!) to keep this from becoming a behemoth essay, so descriptions of the dishes are purely there to give background to the photos, you’ll understand why when you see the amount of dishes which were to face us and because we ate at lunch time and the room was bathed in natural light from the large windows the photos came out better than I could have hoped.

Snacks

Speck Cookie with Blackcurrant & Pine Shoots

Served beautifully in a battered old biscuit tin this exact mouthful burst with savoury berry flavours.

Seabuckthorn Leather & Pickled Rose Hips

Seabuckthorn is something I tried first in Paris when my brother used it as an accompaniment to his malt parfait dessert and its harsh sourness worked equally as well here.

Chicken skin & Rye Bread sandwich with Lumpfish Roe & Smoked Cheese

The ultra crispy chicken skin which formed the base of this was a total delight and holds such a strong chicken flavour that chicken flesh will only taste bland and boring from now on, so good to actually know what chicken tastes like.

Fresh Shrimp with Brown Butter

Wow and bloody hell! The kilner jars contained a number of small and very live shrimps, definitely a dish that aims to challenge the diner to the extreme. After dipping into the brown butter sauce and crunching through them we then decided the head probably wasn’t the most palatable part. But when I went for another and it tried to jump out I decided I didn’t love it enough to have a second, but you can see what they are trying to do with pushing you as hard as possible and although not something I’ll be rushing to try again it brought a lot of laughs and smiles to our table.

Pickled & Smoked Quail Egg

A Noma classic and no wonder, the wisps of smoke filled you nostrils and prepared you for the smokiness of the egg that would follow. Told to eat whole when you bite into the firm white the yolk explodes into your mouth and the richness flows over every taste bud.

Radish, Soil & Herbs

Another classic that everybody should try at least once and I’m lucky enough to have tried previously but it almost feels like any meal at Noma wouldn’t be complete without it.

Rye bread with a wafer of duck fat

This dish was served by Rene Redzepi and he went into great detail for us about how the duck fat is skimmed off and dried to produce the super thin wafers, one of the most complex items that the Noma chefs do. Compared to how light a lot of the dishes are this being duck fat felt very rich in contrast but you were left wanting more, especially as it had wonderful effect of getting the juices flowing in your mouth.

Savoury Waffle stuffed with Pickled Cucumber & Smoked Fish

Again just amazing presentation, the smoked fish combined with the doughy waffle to make another dish unlike anything else you’ll ever try – Sweet yet savoury it didn’t make sense to the taste buds.

Vinegar dust Toast with Herbs, & Smoked Cod Roe

How this got from the kitchen to our table without a tiny breeze blowing this away I’ve no idea (think that's why I ate it so quickly and had to get somebody else's photo). Ridiculously delicate I especially loved this dish because of the bite the vinegar added and this was just perfect with the cod roe.

Bread with pork fat

I’ve got the mention the fantastic bread, served in felt parcels which retained the just baked feel it was one of best loaves I’ve ever eaten. Crunchy on outside and super soft inside it was divine, but what made this stand out was the pork fat served instead of butter with it – you knew it was almost too indulgent like dripping but couldn’t stop eating it, was only the thought of trying not to fill myself up with bread that stopped me from demolishing the whole lot.

Starters

Shrimps & Sea Urchin, Beach Plants & Cream

Served very cold with a block of ice in the centre of the plate you were told to eat this quickly before it started to warm up. The sea urchin was in the form of frozen powder and this with the cold shrimps was another triumph, but by this time we were expecting everything to be amazing and no surprise really when it was.

Dried Scallops & Watercress, Biodynamic Cereals & Beech Nut

To see the translucent paper thin slices of scallop you knew this was especially about presentation and honestly it was the dish I liked the least out of all, I can’t put my finger on exactly what did strike a chord with me but I think it was oats and the beech nut which reminded me of muesli.

Steak Tartar with Sorrel, Tarragon & Juniper Powder

Even the serving team noticed the smile on my face when this appeared; I’d always wondered what this would be like since I heard about it. I just love the simplicity and using your fingers to scrape the tartar and sorrel through the sauce was so satisfying, it’ll be hard for them to take this and the next dish off the menu.

Langoustine & Sol, Parsley & Seawater

An enormous slab of rock with the most plump and juicy langoustine I’ve seen made its way to the table and was basically brilliant, and it did taste of seawater!

The Oyster & The Sea

This actually wasn’t on our menu originally as one of our party has an aversion to oysters but when Rene found out he added as extra dish anyway knowing it could only be left. The showmanship of this and the aroma were a revelation and all of us (especially the aversive person) loved it.

Fresh Cheese & Saint George Mushroom, Axel Berry & Woodruff

This cheese was made in morning by the chefs and therefore the freshness shone through. The mushrooms were seasonal, raw and surprise surprise gorgeous.

Mains

The Duck & The Egg

A dish like this is so simple yet ground-breaking at same time, the basic principle is that you cook your own egg and the table. Everything about this is timed to perfection and you end up cooking your own dish in the world’s best restaurant – how good is that?

Violet Carrot & Truffle from Gotland

We were shown this dish at the start of our meal when the chef braising the carrots in butter the pan out and explained the process, the end product was carrots so sweet and buttery yet still retaining crunch and undeniable carrot texture.

Pike Perch & Celeriac, Cabbage Stems & Pickled Ramson Seeds

I’d never tried pike before and was impressed with its firmness, the skin held the big flakes of juicy white flesh together, the cabbage stems added a fresh and vibrant texture to contrast the soft fish.

Pickled Vegetables, Ox Marrow & Herbs

Almost looked too good to eat this dish, the bright vivid colours of the vegetables and flowers looked more like a florist’s arrangement than a chef’s. The vegetables had all been picked differently and when eaten with the super rich bone marrow it was simply a revelation.

Ox Cheek & Endive, Pickled Pear & Verbena

This was similar to the beef I’d eaten in Paris, the ox cheek’s had been cooked for twenty four hours in hay and I was very happy to be able to experience it again. This time instead of different onions this was served with paper like slices of pear and my god it worked well. The thing about this dish is the fact it goes against everything you’re told about cooking beef, i.e. always have rare to medium rare – this is at the other end of the spectrum as it is very well done but the way this is executed by the guys here makes the meat so fantastically flavoursome and tender and when combined with juicy pear you just want to close your eyes and savour every last bit. The fact you are given a hunting knife to carve the beef is a great piece of showmanship.

Desserts

Carrot & Buttermilk

I love carrot when used in deserts probably more than when used in savoury dishes and the inherent sweetness is better than most sugars for sure. The buttermilk ice surrounding the carrot centre made it look like a spherical egg when opened up.

Jerusalem Artichoke & Marjoram, Apple & Malt

Everything about the taste of the Jerusalem artichoke shouldn’t work with deserts but having made deserts using it myself after a glut in a veg box one week I was excited about Noma’s use of this ultimate earthy vegetable. Actually the earthy flavour just works with sweet especially when this is natural sweetness from apples.

Gommel Dansk – Milk & Wood Sorrel

Sorrel & milk shouldn’t be this good, the frozen milk dissolved as soon as it hit the moisture of the your tongue. This was good dish to freshen up your mouth before we headed to the sofa’s for our coffee and petit fours.

Petit Fours

Bone Marrow Fudge

A brown paper parcel was intriguing and when unwrapped the interest only heightened. The fudge was positioned in highly polished sections of bone, this was simply one of the most surprising tastes ever – smoked, meaty, sweet and fudge. How they came up with idea of a bone marrow fudge I can only imagine but this typifies the excellence of Noma and what has pushed them to the dizzy height of number one in the world.

Floode Bolle – Yogurt Cream Bun

This wasn’t very sweet instead it had a balanced flavour from the yogurt, yet again presentation was immense – this was served in a metal bucket and the buns were laying on top of crumpled paper.

Potato Crisps, Dark Chocolate & Fennel Seeds

I don’t have a sweet tooth so the distinct lack of sweetness in all Noma’s deserts and petit fours was heaven to me. Here this dish was bitter with chocolate and then the anis fennel and the salty crisps just made a superb finale to an unforgettable meal.

The Wines
We went for matching wines with our menu and left it up to our sommelier to choose the best match and I have never felt so invigorated by a selection of wines of special note was the first wine which is named after Rene’s new daughter was the first Danish wine I’ve ever tried knowingly and it was a revelation, crisp and not over dry they really have got the best out of cold hardy grape varieties and no wonder they are so proud of it when it is only in its second vintage, this is the first available vintage but you’re unlikely to see this anywhere else. All the other wines were faultless without being safe bets and boring.

• 2008 Lilleo Arwen, Denmark
• 2007 Arbois ‘Fleur de Savagnin, Domaine de la Tournelle, Jura
• 2007 Riesling Troken, Knebel, Mosel
• 2008 Chablis, Pattes Loup (Thomas Pico), Bourgogne
• 2007 Vire-Clesse ‘Thurissey’, Domaine Saint Barbe (Jean-Marie Chaland), Bourgogne
• NV Marie Courtin Extra Brut, Dominique Moreau, Champagne
• NV ‘RN7’ Moins d’alcool, Autant de Plaisir!, Domaine Fontanay (Simon Hawkins), Roanne
• 2007 Cornas ‘Brise Cailloux’ (Magnum), Matthieu Barret, Rhone
• 2009 Moscato d’Asti, Alexandra Bera, Piemonte
• 2008 Riesling Auslese, Georg Breuer, Rheingau

Without a doubt this was the best meal I’ve ever or ever likely to eat, not just the food but everything which goes with it – the staff, the building, the surroundings, the wine and even down to the crockery – all were simply stunning and it was something I’ll never forget. I feel privileged and very lucky to have been able to eat the menu chosen for us by my brother, a five hour lunch which included both Noma classics and new forward thinking and challenging dishes. I hope Noma continues to push the boundaries like they have so successfully for much longer. Now how can I justify eating here again… well I haven’t had dinner here have I, hmm? Thanks to everybody at Noma especially my brother Sam Miller & Rene Redzepi.

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