Word: redzepi
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Copenhagen delegates who find their motivation flagging during a long evening session on the finer points of cap and trade could do far worse than to stop in for a meal at Noma. At chef Rene Redzepi's astonishing restaurant, dinner begins with a tiny quail egg served on a bed of smoldering hay (all the better to infuse the lush yolk with the haunting flavors of barnyard and smoke). In both its sustainably raised, locally foraged credentials, and its all-around deliciousness, the egg is Noma's small but potent culinary reminder of why saving the planet matters...
...word in that sentence is local. Any number of restaurants around the world have embraced the seasonal/regional/sustainable aesthetic, but at Noma, Redzepi shows you - with every bite - why it is important. The flavors he serves, whether a puckery ribbon of pickled kohlrabi, or a fatty, smoky bite of musk ox bone marrow, could not possibly come from any other place on earth but Scandinavia. "Like no other restaurant, Noma has been able to define Scandinavian cuisine by focusing entirely on the unique character of regional produce and presenting them in a clearsighted, innovative way," says Per Styregard, editor of Sweden...
...young chef himself is given to plucking tart sea buckthorns from the beach, and pulling up ramps from the forest floor outside of Copenhagen. But his role as forager-in-chief is not affectation; Redzepi has, along with a handful of other chefs, put Scandinavian cuisine on the culinary map by highlighting the distinct products and flavors attached to that part of the world. Which is not to say that he's a traditionalist: this is a guy willing to serve live shrimp unadorned to his diners and to PacoJet his walnuts until they turn into frozen powder for dessert...
...persuaded others as well. Not only has Redzepi trained a number of chefs who have gone on to open their own well-regarded Nordic restaurants, but he's put the cuisine on the international foodie map. Better than anyone else, says Styregard, "Noma has successfully managed to communicate this new approach to Scandinavian cuisine to a broad international audience." A quick flip through the food magazines or the line-up at chefs conferences in the past couple of years proves he is right: Nordic...
...need to know that to enjoy his food. Any climate negotiator sitting down to Redzepi's beef tartare, for example, will get a pristine rectangle of magenta-colored meat, swathed with horseradish and neatly topped with rows of sorrel leaves. The beef is pastured and locally raised, and the taste induces superlatives - cold, rich meat, spicy horseradish, lemony greens. But more than anything, it's the visuals that stun. So simple and so delicious, Noma's tartare looks for all the world like a square of clover. It looks, in other words, like the perfect Scandinavian field for feeding healthy...