René Redzepi is closing his legendary restaurant

by time news

Ka revolution lasts forever, no boiling Danton is granted immortality. That is in the nature of things when it comes to overthrows, and René Redzepi, who has revolutionized the art of cooking in the past two decades like no other since Ferran Adrià, must now experience this as well. Now the Danish-Macedonian chef has announced that he will close his legendary restaurant “Noma” in Copenhagen forever after the 2024 winter season and transform it into a taste laboratory with a large test kitchen.

The justification for this is idealistic and pragmatic in equal measure: In order to continue to be the “Noma”, it has to change fundamentally, said Redzepi, admitting that he had come to the end of his innovative path to date. At the same time, he cited economic constraints as the reason for closing his establishment, which many gourmets considered the best restaurant in the world for years. In order to be able to pay his 100 employees adequately and to be able to maintain the quality standard of “Noma”, he would have to charge prices that nobody is willing to pay – which of course cannot go unchallenged in view of a 500-euro menu.

radical regionalism

In 2003, René Redzepi and Claus Meyer opened “Noma” and shortly afterwards, together with colleagues from other Scandinavian countries, wrote the manifesto of the “New Nordic Cuisine”, propagating radical regionalism, the refinement of simplicity and the primacy of authenticity and not only turned classic haute cuisine with its global luxury ingredients upside down, but also the technical cuisine of the Catalan Ferran Adrià, the then undisputedly ruling kitchen revolutionary. Redzepi became the role model for a whole generation of chefs who freed themselves from sacred traditions and canonical conventions in order to serve turnips from Teltow in Berlin, truffles from Teruel in Madrid or oysters from Zeeland in Rotterdam without alchemical kitchen acrobatics. Redzepi himself has risen to become a cooking superstar, reaping global fame with pop-up restaurants around the world – when he stopped in Sydney in 2016 and was inspired by Aboriginal cuisine in the outback, the temporary ‘noma’ places were sold out in seconds.

After 13 years, Redzepi closed his restaurant in the Christianshavn district, only to reopen it two years later just a few kilometers away in a building complex specially built for him, including large gardens and greenhouses. In 2021 he finally got his third star, which the Michelin Guide had previously denied him out of traditionalist chauvinism. But the revolutionary impetus had already faded and the “Noma” had become a memorial to itself, a place of pilgrimage for a heroic history that had been made into a museum and that, thanks to its overwhelming success, had robbed itself of its uniqueness. In this respect, the step of closing is only logical and follows the example of Ferran Adrià, who gave up his iconic restaurant “El Bulli” on the Costa Brava in 2011 in order to devote himself to culinary research and documentation from now on.

However, the end of “Noma” is no proof that the entire top kitchen is in an existential crisis at the highest level, as Redzepi told the “New York Times”. There are dozens of three-star restaurants all over the world that have had a solid financial foundation for many years and serve great cuisine at menu prices of less than 300 euros, without exploiting their employees like serfs, but also without the ambition of a to be driven by a permanent, exhausting kitchen revolution – Clemens Rambichler’s fantastic “Sonnora” in the Eifel region is representative of many other establishments, a prime example of culinary continuity in Germany that does not encompass the slightest haute goût of an ancient regime of aromas.

And it is just as certain that the lights of top cuisine will not go out in Copenhagen 2024 either. The imperturbably grandiose, ludicrously virtuosic Eric Vildgaard from “Jordnær” alone ensures that, with whom the next sure candidate for the third Michelin star in the Danish capital has long been ready. Vildgaard is also a student of René Redzepi, and that’s one of the reasons why this wonderful, daring kitchen revolutionary, whatever becomes of the “Noma”, is guaranteed a place of honor in the history of culinary art.

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