Noma Signals the End of Extreme Fine Dining?

Redzepi says Noma will become a food lab with pop-ups

Chef Rene Redzepi, the creative mind behind the best restaurant in the world, Noma, in Copenhagen, will stop its regular dining service and focus on its food lab and do periodic pop-ups. 

He made the announcement in the New York Times, which led to shockwaves around the culinary world. How could it be? If Noma can't make it, what about us? 

Noma's food is labour intensive

Or is it a sign that foraging for obscure ingredients is too much, as well as the labour involved in creating edible art on a plate? 

The latter probably has something to do with it -- for decades fine dining restaurants have depended on cheap or free labour from young, hungry chefs eager to learn from mater chefs in the hopes of putting this experience on their resumes to get a better job elsewhere, or to eventually open their own place.

Many visiting chefs I interviewed over the years in Hong Kong said they had worked at Noma, or the previous hot restaurant, el bulli, which definitely boosted their careers, even if they only worked there for a few months. If they learned how to cook is another thing, as one woman told the NYT that she spent hours creating 120 beetles out of fruit leather. 

Another chef who was in charge of fermentation had to create a dish of moldy asparagus and make the dish look like a diorama.

One dish features a beetle made of fruit leather

Why?

Manipulating food to be something else was a fad 10 years ago with molecular gastronomy that threw diners for a loop, manipulating food to look like something else, but now it's back to basics, and the usual chef jargon of "seasonality" and "fresh produce". 

So does Noma have to be so labour intensive? Redzepi has taken the restaurant into such high standards that it's hard for him to step back to be like everyone else. That's how Noma stood out from the crowd with its unusual ingredients and incredible plating, but as he says it is unsustainable.

The other extreme is Joel Robuchon, whose food had to be presented precisely. One young chef recalled having to use a rule to measure butter and his dishes were known for having lots of dots on them that had to be evenly spaced out on the plate. Tedious work that is eaten in seconds.

Hong Kong's Caprice has some "tweezer food"

Thank goodness most fine dining restaurants in Hong Kong are not like Noma -- they are very cost conscious as almost all the food is imported as well as tableware, crockery, equipment and so on. There are some restaurants that present "tweezer food", but for the most part they are cooking food that is recognisable.

In Vancouver it's mostly casual, with some fine dining places putting more effort into the presentation. 

But will Noma's stepping back inspire the restaurant industry to change and start paying everyone a decent wage? Will the custom of young chefs staging or interning end? It may mean diners will have to pay more for the privilege of having someone cook for them... are they prepared to fork out more for that experience?