Copenhagen's Noma was just named the Best Restaurant In The World by the prestigious San Pellegrino's World's 50 Best awards.
Food and travel guru Anthony Bourdain is so enamored by the restaurant that he devoted a whole episode of his CNN show, "Parts Unknown," to it.
In addition to enjoying an incredible meal at the restaurant, Bourdain spent time with its head chef, René Redzepi, foraging for ingredients at a local beach, harvesting crops at a local farm, and sampling dishes in the restaurant's experimentation lab.
This is the third year Noma has won the top title, and from Bourdain's reactions, it's easy to see why.
Copenhagen, Denmark, where Noma is located.
meet executive chef René Redzepi.
Diners wait for months to eat at this 45-seat restaurant. It's famous for its creativity and its emphasis on local and foraged ingredients.
With a side of flowers.
Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown
Here is a marinated soro-soro leaf dipped in "green snow." "I’ve never tasted a green vegetable that good.”
All of the vegetable dishes, like this asparagus roasted with pine, tender spruce shoots, and green asparagus sauce, are made with local ingredients.
Redzepi will even serve insects. This dish is grilled onions, fermented pears, and salt made out of wood ants. One chef explains about eating the bugs, “It’s like zing, its like excitement in your mouth — a party everyone’s invited to.”
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He points out the chive flowers in the field.
He also finds some leeks which they pick and take back to the restaurant.
Later, Redzepi cooks the leeks and serves them
They also eat grilled pike heads with beach herbs, which they found while foraging.
Redzepi then takes to the farm where he gets most of his meat and vegetables. He explains that it's important for chefs to keep the symbiosis with those who grow the food.
At the farm, Redzepi make a four-course meal in about 10 minutes.
It includes fresh veal tartare, wild onions, horseradish, chives, salted leeks, cheese, and a flowered vinaigrette over the asparagus.
Noma is known for its incredibly inventive dishes. Redzepi encourages the staff to come up with creative concoctions: Every Saturday night, Noma's chefs offer new recipes for the staff to sample and critique.
One of these experimental dishes that received plenty of praise was mushroom ice cream with fermented barley sauce.
One of the innovative dishes on the actual menu is quail egg cooked in hay, which Bourdain calls "perfect."
And a fish skewered through a ball of pickled cucumber.
Here's a broth of wild lobster claws and nasturtium petals.
And a "luxurious" lobster tail underneath tiny leaves.
Only in Noma would this be a bread dish. It's a flat bread with shoots of spruce and oak tree.
Redzepi puts a twist on the traditional Danish flavors of potatoes and sauces. These are potatoes cooked in fermented barley.
And Noma even has a food lab where Redzepi tests and experiments with fermented, aged, and dried food.
Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown
There are some pretty adventurous ingredients in the food lab, like these 5-year-old wild roses.
Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown
And bee larva.
This experimentation and creativity results in incredible, memorable, and delicious dishes, like this dessert of pork skin covered in chocolate with freeze-dried blackberries. It's easy to see why Noma won the prestigious title of World's Best Restaurant.
