Let's get this started with a real bang: the 2011 S. Pellegrino Best Restaurant in the World - Noma in Copenhagen, Denmark.
After dual re-loading of the reservation page, Per got us a Noma reservation for December 14th, 2011.
After quite the cold trek to the warehouse building in Copenhagen where Noma is located, we arrived! The current mecca of food. As we walked toward the front door, a shorter Danish man in an apron greeted us as he exited the main door the restaurant and entered another part of the building, it occurred to me later that it was actually THE chef of Noma, Rene Redzepi.
From the instant we walked in the door, we were greeted with fantastic and friendly service. Though this place is the best of the best, the waiters and other staff are so unpretentious and friendly. The kitchen is open and you can watch as 10+ chefs work quickly at creating the food masterpieces. I asked and it turned out there were a number of other chefs working elsewhere in the building, if I remember right (it was a while ago we actually had this amazing experience), there were about 30 chefs working. We were seated close to the window. Had it not been he middle of winter and super dark outside, we could have seen across to Nyhavn from our table. The restaurant is pretty small, with maybe 20 or so tables.
Our amazing dinner started with champagne and a number of small snacks: Hard bread which was hidden in the flowers on our table which was meant to be dipped in creme fraiche, reindeer moss with creme fraiche, Swedish cheese biscuit with herbs (one of my favorites of the night), radishes in edible dirt, pork skin with dried current juice, smoked and pickled quail eggs (the only thing I didn't really like all night), fried potatoes with chicken liver and mushroom dust, roe sandwich with duck broth skin, mussels with edible shells, leek ends, and finally sourdough rye bread with bacon fat and fresh buttermilk butter. What a way to start a meal!
Then we had a 12 course meal with 8 different wines: apple fallen from a tree:
Sea urchin from Norway with frozen dill and cucumber, caramelized onions, chestnuts with fish roe (my favorite dish of the night), poached fish with radishes:
Dried scallops, pickled vegetables with bone marrow, slow roasted potato with Swedish truffles and truffle sauce:
Duck with beets, grilled pear with pine parfait (if Christmas had a taste this would be it):
Gammaldansk with frozen whey and dill, frozen potato with plum and plum pit cream marzipan:
And finally two little final packages of bone marrow fudge and danish floddebollar.
Every dish was delivered by the chef who just prepared it in the kitchen and almost all the dishes came with a nice story about the farmer who grew the leeks or the man in Norway who hand dove for the sea urchin. Each chef equally as excited about the dish they presented and super friendly.
Though it was almost three months ago we ate there, I'd say it is a meal worth blogging about. The price tag for a meal at the best restaurant in the world was hefty, but I would say worth it. Like I told my dad: "Once you eat at Noma, food is never the same again!"
