What will be on the menu at Noma 2.0?

According to the Noma website, the new restaurant, which is slated to open in January 2018 in a new space in Copenhagen, will have an urban farm, large research kitchens and a menu that changes rigidly with the seasons. The exact dishes that will feature on the menu (if they know them) have been kept deliberately vague, but Team GT has been zealously Instagram-stalking René Redzepi and his team as they eat their way around Greenland and Iceland to find out what ingredients might make an appearance.

What will be on the menu at Noma 2.0?

If you missed the news, the original Noma at Strandgade 93 in Copenhagen closed its doors after 14 years of service in February this year. Since, Team Noma have popped up in Mexico, opened Barr restaurant at the original site, hosted a $2,000USD a head dinner at a members-only club in New York and launched a pop-up under a bridge in Copenhagen. Noma’s test kitchen team have also been travelling around Scandinavia researching ingredients for their next project: Noma 2.0.

Sea urchin

First, Redzepi (@reneredzepinoma) dived for sea urchins off the coast of Grøtøy in Norway, then he collected the multicolour stack (pictured here) in Iceland. From Greenland, Redzepi posted that the sea urchin “is today what foie gras was in the 90s”. He then mysteriously deleted the post – or it was removed (do Instagram’s community guidelines extend to sea urchins’ gonads?).

Seal

Both Redzepi and Noma’s head of research and development, Thomas Frebel (@thomasfrebel) Instagrammed their visit to an old fish market in Nuuk, Greenland, where they witnessed seals being butchered.

Seal

While little detail is given as to the meat’s actual taste, Redzepi’s diagram helpfully labels its thick layer of fat, almost black meat and spareribs. Barbecued seal ribs, anyone?

Bread

You probably weren’t expecting to see Wonder White at Noma 2.0, but you probably weren’t expecting to see Icelandic rye bread, steamed in geothermal hot springs for 24 hours either. In Redzepi’s Instagram story, he suggests pairing it with generous amounts of butter and wild arctic char smoked in dried sheep’s dung.

Seaweed

While in Iceland, Redzepi and Frebel visited seaweed specialist Islensk Hollusta. They tried aged kelp and two-year-old dried seaweed stalk, which Redzepi described as “completely outrageously amazing” – you could safely assume this will be making an appearance in some form at Noma 2.0.

The pair also foraged for wild oyster leaves, beach mustard, crow berries, dandelion flowers – which can be used to make a golden syrup – and a seaweed that, when dried, Redzepi claims tastes like truffle.

Fermented shark

Fermented shark – hung up and air-dried for up to six months – is a 400-year old Icelandic tradition. It’s also the most difficult thing Redzepi has ever eaten.

If you’d like to engage in your own sleuthing while you await the opening of Noma 2.0, follow Noma, Redzepi and Frebel using the tags @nomacph, @reneredzepinoma and @thomasfrebel on Instagram and keep a keen eye on the hashtag #noma2.