Noma opens a burger joint
The team behind the feted Noma restaurant found customers queued around the block for their pandemic burger popup,
IT is one of the best restaurants in the world, known for its 18course tasting menus costing north of $NZ500 per person and for spawning a culinary movement based on foraging for ingredients.
Now Noma, the two Michelinstarred Copenhagen restaurant run by feted chef Rene
Redzepi, has opened the doors of a new venture: a burgerand chips joint.
The move is born out of the devastation caused by Covid19 as it has swept through the global hospitality industry, leaving closures and ruined lives in its wake. Among the casualties was Restaurant 108, Noma’s sister venture, which closed last September causing industry observers to conclude no business was safe.
Noma’s new incarnation will be simpler, humbler and cheaper — but with the same organic ingredients, creative techniques and attention to detail that have entranced gastronomes for the past 17 years. ‘‘It’s a pretty huge change, and a big moment for me,’’ Redzepi said.
The burger joint, POPL, from the Latin word ‘‘populus’’ meaning people, opened in December after a temporary popup during the northern hemisphere summer attracted long queues for its beef/ vegetable burgers.
Instead of requiring prepaid reservations for months in advance, POPL is open for walkins and takeaways.
Rather than an ambitious tasting menu, including mahogany clam decorated with seaweed fronds and saltpreserved unripe gooseberries, it offers beef, vegetable and vegan burgers, chips and a few sides.
And instead of costing more than $NZ500 for a meal, the burgers are priced at just over $NZ30, plus $NZ11 for fries. Takeaways are cheaper.
But, said Redzepi, ‘‘we’ve put the same amount of energy and dedication and care into a burger.’’ The beef comes from freerange cattle raised on organic farms on the shores of the Wadden Sea national park. The vegetable and vegan burgers are made from fermented quinoa. A side salad is served with a buttermilk and rose dressing.
Redzepi, who opened Noma in 2003, has been a chef for almost three decades. ‘‘All that time I’ve been cooking at the finest restaurants, the best of the best. With that came very tight and organised kitchens, reservation lists, small dinner services of a maximum of 60 people, and hype.
‘‘This summer, when we could go out on the streets again, we thought OK, we’ll do something that is a common denominator for everyone. What is the number one food that everyone likes? A burger.’’
On the first day of the popup, the Noma team had prepared 300 meals.
‘‘We thought that would be the busiest day. We had no idea of the local support. It was crazy. We were serving an average of 2400 burgers a day. Roughly we had as many guests during that fiveweek popup, only open four days a week, as we did in six years of operating Noma,’’ Redzepi said.
‘‘I didn’t know it was important to me that everyone could have access to our food. I loved the fact that I was seeing people that I’d known at school waiting in line, I’d see all my neighbours, family members, distant cousins — everybody came, everyone wants a burger. This was one of the most fun things I’d ever done.’’
In the past decade, Noma has been named best restaurant in the world four times by
Restaurant magazine; last year it came in at number two.
There are three Noma books, two featurelength films and a Noma documentary series. An academic paper has been written about the New Nordic cuisine spearheaded by Redzepi. A dedicated fan base of ‘‘Nomaheads’’ follow the chef around the world to eat dishes such as an edible butterfly created in part from a paste of currants, gooseberries, and crushed ants.
The new burger joint ‘‘is a significant change for us’’, said Redzepi. ‘‘And we have no clue how it’s going to work out in the long run.’’ — Guardian News and Media
I didn’t know it was important to me that everyone could have access to our food. I loved the fact that I was seeing people that I’d known at school waiting in line, I’d see all my neighbours, family members, distant cousins — everybody came, everyone wants a burger. This was one of the most fun things I’d ever done