Meal of a lifetime in Mexico

half, lending a pleasant citric bite to the dessert. (The flavour comes from formic acid in the insects.) Ants, says Redzepi, can vary in flavor from blue cheese to cilantro to lemon.

By the end of the night, I feel as though I’ve met everyone who works at Noma, including the most famous dishwasher in the world, Ali Sonko, a 62-year-old Gambian native who helped open Noma in 2003 and was recently made a partner in the enterprise.

The extreme hospitality at Noma Mexico – confident, knowing, comforting – feels genuine. No doubt, it springs from the closeness of the team. The notion of family takes on new meaning when you consider the staff, made up of more than 20 nationalities, pretty much lives together for the life span of the pop-up, with only Mondays and Tuesdays off.

Redzepi has heard the criticism: Six hundred dollars is a lot to pay for a meal, especially a dinner that isn’t easy to reach. “There’s a Protestant reaction to spending money on food” that doesn’t extend to indulgences including apartments, cars or clothes, he says, almost with a sigh.

But the chef says he believes in living wages for his staff and has partnered with a nonprofit collection of Mayan communities, Traspatio Maya, to provide crops including cilantro, corn and wild bee larvae. Local weavers made the adorable sisal turtles attached to the menus, brought out only at the end of dinner. “My conscience is clean,” says Redzepi, who has also created a scholarship fund for Mexican culinary students.

Indeed, to hear about the logistics of the restaurant, built from scratch and expected to be turned over to the co-sponsoring Colibri Boutique Hotels when the road show ends next month, is to wonder why the tasting menu doesn’t cost even more.

This is expected to be the last pop-up before Noma 2.0 opens in Copenhagen in December with an experimental urban farm. While several new names have been considered the most celebrated chef in the world says he’s likely to stick with Noma.

Wherever in the world he’s cooking, Redzepi reminds his staff to reward diners for the effort they’ve put into the visit. It’s a tall order: “We have to be the meal of the decade for people.” – Washington Post