(upbeat music) – Noma, it’s a place people
recognize for being named the best restaurant in
the world four times. The original Noma opened
in Copenhagen 15 years ago, surprising guests with
its inventive offerings like dishes disguised as herb pots and careful displays
of roasted bone marrow with edible flowers. Chef Rene Redzepi built meals from nature using seasonal ingredients
found in the Nordic region. The style is now called
New Nordic cuisine. It has granted Noma two Michelin stars and has put Copenhagen’s
food scene on the map. In 2010, Noma was voted number
one restaurant in the world by Restaurant Magazine and then again in 2011 and 2012 and 2014. Two other restaurants have taken
the title in 2015 and 2016. All the while, though, Noma
has hovered near the top. But not too long ago, Chef Rene Redzepi shut everything down, and this latest move could
give them back the title. Noma closed at the end of 2016 before opening its new
space in February 2018 roughly a mile from the original location. It’s received visits from
foodies around the world and A-list celebrities
like Justin Timberlake. – It’s different 15 years in. People expect more. I mean, they expect to have
maybe the meal of a lifetime and an experience as well on top of that. – [Taryn] But why would a chef risk his profitable
business to start all over? – I was getting a bit annoyed
with how we were working. I felt the routine was stifling us, and we should probably be
looking for a new place to see if that could give us something. – The new location seats 42 people, each seat costing 2,250 Krona
or about $340 U.S. dollars, but the biggest change is in
what everyone comes to taste, the restaurant’s three seasonal menus. Vegetable-based in the summer,
seafood-based in the winter, and meat-based in the fall. Each dish is thought out carefully and focused on local ingredients
found in the Nordic region. – In the very beginning,
we have a brainstorm. Okay, what could be fun
to have on this menu? And then we just started tagging it. So we always have at
least a couple of weeks where we’re not actually
putting things on a plate and trying to make dishes but where we just investigate all these creative ideas that we have. – [Taryn] Some of those ideas include the celeriac and truffle shawarma and rose-scented cake
resembling a small herb pot. The team hopes the seasonal menus will encourage guests to
visit Noma more often, but they’ll have to wait another year to see if they will make the
best restaurant list again. – In a restaurant like this,
it’s about the everyday. It’s about finding the balance between creativity and production and your team and hard work, low pay, family, ingredients, suppliers. It’s a network of a lot
of things happening, and sometimes people recognize
it in an extraordinary way, and you get to be changed
forever like our restaurant did when we first became number one, but I still truly, wholeheartedly believe if you go to work with
only that thing in mind, you won’t last long in this trade. – [Taryn] As for whether
starting over was worth it despite taking some pretty
big risks along the way. – Of the 15 years we’ve been open, this is the moment where
we have the most requests. I stopped counting actually but probably in the thousands every day of people waiting for a table. – [Taryn] So it’s been good for business, but it’s done even more to
motivate Rene and his team. – I don’t know how I can explain except that it’s like a hunger. I feel like I just can’t stand still. Sometimes you see or you hear
a song or you see a movie or something that makes
you wanna do something and change your life or do something. I feel like that almost all the time. (upbeat music) Video source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPy41Sie8Os
