And from what I have seen, both working there, and eating, it really is one of the best restaurants in the globe. The food is absotutely great, probably the closest to perfection I will ever find in my whole life. The service is polite, without being too over you. And the atmosphere, with the simple tables and chairs, let you know that the important thing is the great food, not nice decoration or beautiful places.
To start of, 11, yes eleven , bite size starters, with the most different tastes, textures and so on.
So here goes the starters:
Moss and cep
Blue Mussels
Cookies and Cheese
Leek and Parsley
Potato and chicken liver
Pickled and smoked quail egg
Radish soil and grass
Toast and herbs, smoked cod roe and vinegar
Cod liver
Now you must be counting, and yes we are missing 2 starters, the Malt flatbread and juniper and the Pork Skin with black currant. Sorry, we couldnt wait 10 seconds for pictures so we ate them before.
Everything was bite size, mostly finger food. Perfect starters. Couldnt say anything bad about any of those. The mix of textures, tastes, everything was magical. The highlights here goes for the Cod liver, the Pork belly and the Smoked Quail Egg.
Then, we move on to the actual dinner. A 12 course menu, of those 3 desserts, telling about the Scandinavian cuisine and using all the Nordic ingredients at the best.
Apple and Jerusalem artichoke, Garden Sorrel and coriander.
This cute dish was basically a passing dish, mouth washing. Acidic flavors, very juicy, to clean your mouth from the starters, to get you ready for the real deal.
Sea Urchin and Cream Cucumber and elderflower.
It was a very interesting dish, I would say. The sea urchin tasted great with the cucumber 'sorbet' and the elderflowers, a cold dish, full of flavor. The only downside was, to my mother, the texture of the sea urchin. For me, it was overall a great dish.
Bio dynamic grains and watercress Dried scallops and beach nuts.
For me, one of the stars of the night. The dried scallops are so crispy, and full of flavor. Its brilliant. I loved every single thing about this dish. Also, the idea of bringing a new texture to an old flavor is something that i really love.
Chestnut and Löjrom (Bleak Roe or Kalix Caviar)
Probably, if not for sure, the dish that I liked the most. Raw chestnuts, in a white butter sauce, with Kalix Caviar. It sounds quite hard to imagine all that together. But when you get to taste, it is certainly a dish that I wont forget anytime soon. The sweet of the chestnuts, the brilliant white butter sauce, and the salty of the Kalix caviar, made this dish one of the best things I have ever tried in my entire life. Full of flavor, textures, its really hard to describe what felt to eat this at Noma
Onion and lemon thyme and goose berry juice.
One of the most simple dishes in Noma, if not the simpler. It is basically roasted onions in clarified butter, with lemon thyme and goose berry juice. And it is absolutely amazing that with those ingredients, the dish is so nice, really good. The melting onions, the really acidic lemon thyme and the sweet and sour goose berry juice. Dishes like this show that the chef is brilliant. It takes a lot of knowledge and skills to come up with something so brilliant with so few and simple ingredients.
Unfortunately I had a problem with my camera and some of the pictures are not good, pretty much dark and you can not see anything. Which is really disappointing, but I will try to explain the missing dishes the best I can.
The following dish was Pike perch and Cabbage.The roasted cabbage stuffed with the pike, was one of the best of the night as well. The fish was cooked to perfection and went really well with basil. Also, some stems of dandelion, cooked in clarified butter, really helped the pike to gives out all the potential. A brilliant dish, a true shame I dont have the pictures.
The next dish, which I dont have pictures as well was the Celeriac and truffles.
A simple, but great dish. Basically roasted celeriac with Swedish truffle sauce
Pickled vegetables and bone marrow.
This is mainly a 'passing dish' to clean the palate to the main course. But it is a truly brilliant pickles dish. 7 types of vegetables, including shallots, carrots, beetroot and celeriac. And on top of that, a brilliant hay smoked bone marrow. To finish, a lovely presentation of the dish. What else can you want from food? Great taste, lovely looking.
The main course.
Unfortunately, no pictures. A shame. A real masterpiece. Wild duck and beets, beech and malt. Perfect cooked wild duck chest, soft beets and apples, both roasted, and lovely slices of beetroot. Malt on top of all that. The combination of the sweetnes of the beets, with the malt, and the soft and tasty duck chest, made this dish something really close to perfection. A wonderfull dish, worth all the time you have to wait to go to Noma. Mind blowing. Hard to find words to describe.
Now, its desserts time.
Gammel Dansk
Meaning old dansk, this is the name of a very famous Danish liquor. Very herbal taste. The white part is made of frozen yogurt. The green sauce tastes a lot like Jaggermeister, with the very sour of the frozen yogurt.
Pear Tree.
In my opinion, this was the downside of the evening. The dish was a roasted pear with herbs and a Pine parfait. The pear was absolutely lovely, but the pine parfait had a too herbal taste that i couldn't enjoy.
Potato and plum
A brilliant dessert. Mashed potatoes, with a plum jam and plum seeds cream. The combination of the plum jam and the potatoes is great. To finish that, the lovely cream of plum seeds, with the taste of cherries ( yes plum seeds taste and smell like cherries) made me really love this dessert. By far the best of them. Once again, only 2 ingredients, but taken to another level. Who would imagine that potatoes and plum would go so well together.
Little sweet treats. Potato chips in dark chocolate and fennel seeds and Cookie and yogurt under a chocolate cover. Also, a bone marrow caramel , which i do not have pictures.
Thats all guys. Sorry about the missing pictures, and aswell the quality of the pictures. I have a policy to not take pictures with flash lights in restaurants, because I find that very rude toward the other guests.
This was the best dinner I had in my entire life. I really appreciate that my parents gave me the opportunity to be with them this night. Thank you very much Carlos and Catia. Love you guys.
Thanks for reading, sorry for such a long post, but it was a long dinner ( nearly 4 hours total). Hope you enjoyed reading my comments and the pictures.
