This past Friday we attended dinner at Noma in Copenhagen. Have been thinking about it a lot and trying to put it in perspective as both my wife and I thought it was not good with it leaning more towards bad. It was by far our most disappointing meal of the trip.
I tried not to go in to the meal with a lot of expectations and I read very little about the meal before hand. It was the summer vegetable menu which probably wouldn’t have been my first choice but as we don’t know when we will be back in Copenhagen we figured why not. I have had excellent vegetable focused menus at Charlie Trotter’s, Grace and Arpege and I do enjoy vegetables a lot.
The meal starts with you being greeted at the curb by Noma staff. You check in and then you walk down a long sidewalk maybe 150m to the entrance passed a lake and some of their greenhouses and other buildings. It is a very pretty walk. You then open the big wooden doors and are greeted very enthusiastically by the entire staff which is a lot or people maybe 40+(?). It is very cool but quite surprising. The issue we had with this process was that we arrived right on time for our reservation and were informed by the staff that they weren’t ready for us yet. It was raining, pretty hard so we stood outside for about 10 min in the rain waiting to make our trip down the sidewalk. There is one patio umbrella for protection, luckily we brought an umbrella from the hotel. Wasn’t overly pleasant.
The dining room is beautiful all wood and we had a large table with a view out the huge windows to the lake. It was full even at 5:00. I would say the average age of the diners was maybe 30… I felt old. The staff is even younger. People were dressed up, there were people in shorts. (there is no dress code)
The wine - probably the most disappointing part was absolutely terrible. They push the pairing so I asked for the list. It was a list of maybe 100 bottles and I did not recognize one producer from any region except for a couple of really over priced champagnes. Not wanting to spend 30 min trying to figure out what to drink - I asked the server about the pairings, he said they were all bright old world wines. I told him I favor Burgundy and he said I would be very happy. So I went with that. The first wine was an Austrian Sparkling wine which was good. Then we got to the next wine which was an Orange wine from Australia. Really bad. I asked if this is typical of the rest of the pairing and he said yes so I bailed and got the Sommelier to find me a White Burg. He did and it was good. Domaine Valette Viré Clessé I had never heard of it but I believe it was Macon. $150 so not terrible by Noma standards. My wife stuck it out with the wine pairing which produced 4 more whites all with extended skin contact, orange, biodynamic etc. etc. Not one I would drink and even my wife who is very easy going did not enjoy. Pairing is $208 by the way +25%VAT
The food - It’s a 20 course menu and each dish is visually really beautiful. Each course is brought by a different chef and explained well and they are able to answer just about any question. I am not going to go through each dish but overall I found the menu very redundant. All the flavors were very similar, green, acidic and I have never eaten so many flowers in my life. There was nothing from an ingredient standpoint that was very unique. There were ingredients that to me didn’t really seem summery like Morels, asparagus, strawberries. There was nothing truly savory. I didn’t need meat but I wanted something with some substance. There was a grilled onion that was really good and a fried marigold that gave some fattiness to the meal. The last dish/main course was Shawarma of celeriac which was good but I had so much green food by that time we couldn’t finish. There were some good dishes nothing I would ever want to eat again. Desserts were unremarkable. The cost of the food is $345pp +25%VAT
When the meal was over they offered us a tour of the kitchen and then you can go have aquavit in a lounge. We passed. I think it was pretty clear we weren’t happy with the meal. I didn’t complain as I truly believe this is what the restaurant wanted to offer. Maybe if I was much younger knew nothing about food or wine I would have been happy with the “journey” Noma wants to take you on or maybe it just wasn’t for me. I really tried to like it.
The icing on the cake… When you receive the bill there is a line on the bottom. “cards issued outside the EU, American Express cards and corporate credit cards are subject to a 3.5% surcharge”. I asked the waiter if this applied to my American Visa and he said yes. I have never seen this on a Visa/MC anywhere in Europe. Needless to say I did not pay it. Our bill all in with today’s FX was $1400
George