Chef René Redzepi will temporarily shutter his Copenhagen restaurant Noma to open a pop-up restaurant in Australia in 2016.
If the scheme sounds familiar, that’s because he did a similar stint in Japan earlier this winter, likewise bringing his culinary ethos to the foodie elite in Tokyo where he created a new menu using local ingredients.
For 10 weeks, Redzepi will relocate his entire restaurant staff to Sydney, where they will host a pop-up restaurant serving a menu inspired by local Australian ingredients at the invitation of the country’s tourism board.
The project is meant to showcase the country as a premier food and wine destination with a bit of star-powered, name-dropping.
For Redzepi, the pop-up allows the chef to reach diners halfway around the world: Instead of diners flying to Denmark, Noma comes to them.
The pop-up will also help open a new waterfront space in Sydney, the Barangaroo, touted as Australia’s first carbon-neutral development and a future food and drink destination.
For inspiration, Redzepi has already set out on foraging trips scouting for local ingredients in Tasmania, Adelaide and Melbourne, meeting with producers, local communities and farmers.
“I’ve been to Australia many times. And each time I’m drawn to this unique landscape that’s so different from what we have at home,” he said in a video (below). “The ingredients are so different and the diversity’s huge.”
Noma Australia will be open for lunch and dinner five days a week beginning in January 2016. The Danish restaurant has topped the World’s 50 Best Restaurants awards by UK-based Restaurant magazine four times.
For more details visit www.noma.dk/australia.