Will the $850 Menu at Noma Kyoto Change Your Life?
Maybe not. But your foodie status will be gold-plated for a long time.
Noma’s cornucopia from Japan’s fields, forests and waters.
Photographer: Benjamin BeecheyRene Redzepi’s charisma can charm dragons. Through two decades, the Danish chef’s lofty gastronomic ambitions and unfussy approach to hospitality turned his Copenhagen restaurant Noma into a culinary magnet — paradoxically inaccessible to most diners, yet enchantingly popular. He has withstood controversies, relocations, critics, closures and Michelin’s long refusal to give him a third star, before it finally relented in 2021.
Those charms have made Noma the restaurant that gastronomes have to get to when they visit not only Copenhagen but any place in the world Redzepi decides to set up shop. That’s why I flew all the way to Japan from London. He had brought Noma to Kyoto, making it the center of the gourmet universe for the season. Every foodie wanted to be there.