Noma

Noma defined a generation of cooking — the New Nordic cuisine movement, with its focus on foraged and fermented Scandinavian ingredients, influenced restaurants from Tokyo to São Paulo. The original restaurant in the former naval warehouse buildings on Refshaløen island closed in 2024, but its legacy is visible throughout Copenhagen's restaurant scene.

If visiting the island (accessible by water bus or bicycle), the area around Noma has become a creative cluster with several good restaurants, a craft brewery, and an urban garden project. Several of the chefs who trained under René Redzepi have opened their own places in Copenhagen, carrying on the experimental approach: Relæ (now closed), Amass, and Empirical Spirits distillery are all connected to the Noma lineage.

eating out restaurant
A story
Noma closed its restaurant operation in January 2024 after being named the world's best restaurant four times. René Redzepi said the restaurant model — with its requirement for hundreds of unpaid interns doing punishing hours — was unsustainable financially and ethically. The closure reignited debates about labour conditions in fine dining that the industry has been reluctant to address. The site continues as a food laboratory and test kitchen.