San Francisco Frontiers - Denmark's fabled restaurant noma sells products to amateur cooks

The move was at least in part inspired by the difficulties it experienced during the Covid crisis.

"It is important that we are opening up to more than just 70 guests" at a time, Thomas Frebel, creative director of noma projects, told AFP.

"Since I started in 2009... we were thinking, 'Imagine you could buy this in the store,'" said Frebel, who works with chef and co-owner of the restaurant Rene Redzepi.

An acronym formed from the Danish words "nordisk" (Nordic) and "mad" (food), noma (with a lowercase "n") first opened on a quay in central Copenhagen in 2003.

It closed in 2016 and reopened two years later in a slightly more remote neighbourhood of the Danish capital.

Today, a dinner menu at the prestigious establishment now costs 4,400 kroner ($680) per person, plus 2,100 kroner for a wine pairing or 1,600 for juice.

After Covid forced it to close its doors temporarily, "there was a moment where we said: 'OK, we need to change the way we operate and the way we are depending on only the guests having to walk through our doors'," Frebel recalled.

- Signature products -

Even before the pandemic, the restaurant -- which holds three Michelin stars -- had experimented with residencies abroad in London and Sydney.

Now, however, it wants to spread its products outside its own kitchens.

The noma "touch" owes much to fermentation -- which can render even pine edible -- as well as to its sophisticated broths.

So the establishment decided to bottle up the flavours of its "fermentation lab" and "test kitchen".

Online and in its store, located in a greenhouse right in front of the fabled restaurant, it has started selling the products.

They include its wild rose vinegar -- priced at 235 kroner for 250 millilitres -- its pumpkin-seed praline spread and mushroom cooking sauce.

- Six months of fermentation -

In the shop, visitors can have a coffee and taste the products.

The new venture is "exciting" and "I feel like they're making noma more accessible," Stephen Velasco, an American who has ben living in Copenhagen for 32 years, told AFP.

In the future, Frebel hopes to reach "a greater audience and have entered many more home kitchens than just one little kitchen here".

However, the prices of the products may still deter some consumers.

"I love that you can just walk in and sort of experience it from the street," said Agata Seferynska, a Polish student who came window-shopping with a friend.

But the purchases would have to wait until "we have more money", she added.

For noma, the prices are "justified simply by that everything is made by hand.

"Some of the sauces need to be fermented for over six months," Frebel said.

"So that is just the way it is, unfortunately. There's nothing we can do about it."

In early 2026, noma will relocate to Los Angeles for a few months.

It plans to shutter the restaurant until after the American expedition, but the Copenhagen store will remain open.

F.Edwards--SFF