When all the city's gourmet restaurants were competing for a place in the Michelin guide with French cuisine, chefs Rene Redzepi and Claus Meyer took a gamble – to open a high-end restaurant serving only Scandinavian ingredients. They called it Noma, an abbreviation of 'Nordic Mad' or Scandinavian food. Some years later and with Redzepi - formerly of Michelin-rated restaurants like Spain's El Bulli - still at the helm as head chef, it has been named as the third best restaurant in the world. The dishes are Scandinavian, not in a Viking-inspired meat fest but with the ocean as inspiration - sea food and indeed seaweed combine with peculiarly Nordic berries and fruits, with any of the ingredients hailing from Greenland, the Faroe Isles and Iceland. The menu, which changes according to season, reads like a poem: tartar and wood sorrel, musk ox and grilled leeks. The location is a little out of town, right next to the harbor – the waves seem to lap right up to the tables – in a 250 year-old former warehouse shared with the North Atlantic Cultural Center. As a compliment to the cuisine, the decor is simple and rustic. Reservation is necessary – this place books up months in advance.
