Noma 2.0 Cookbook Review

Noma 2.0: Vegetable, Forest, Ocean

We couldn't be more excited to share this restaurant cookbook review. With this review, we celebrate the launch of Noma 2.0 Cookbook, the latest publication from René Redzepi and his team.

There's a reason restaurant Noma sits atop the list of the world's best restaurants. Every bite, every dish, every course surprises, delights, challenges, and deeply satisfies in a way that's unique in the world of dining. As the New York Times's Pete Wells wrote recently in praising Noma's flavors, "sauces are administered so subtly that you don't notice anything weird going on; you just think you've never tasted anything so extraordinary in your life."

In Noma 2.0, René digs deep into the restaurant's magic through the creation of nearly 200 dishes, each photographed in spectacular beauty and detail.

‍

‍

The Reinvention of the World's Best Restaurant

As the book title suggests, Noma 2.0 is a reference to the reinvention of Noma after it closed in 2018 to move to its new location.

Noma 2.0 have a clear focus on true seasonality. It is all about using only local ingredients to build a profoundly situated cuisine in its place and culture. It is about transforming the ordinary to develop haunting, memorable flavors. It is about composing a plate that delights the eye as the palate, whether through the trompe l'oeil of a "flowerpot" chocolate cake or a dazzling mandala of flowers and berries. It is about pushing the boundaries.

When René closed the original Noma and moved to its new location, he and his team reinvented everything about the world's most influential restaurant. Telling this story through the lens of 200 extraordinary dishes, each photographed in spectacular beauty and detail, Noma 2.0 cookbook offers something we can all learn from, cooks or not: how to stay creative and challenge ourselves throughout a career.

While there is no substitute for sitting at a table at Noma, the purpose of this book is to show you what's going on at the restaurant.

‍

‍

Inside Noma Kitchen

‍Noma 2.0 cookbook brings something new to the market of restaurant cookbooks. Here, the photographs almost speak for themselves, but only partially, which is why informative text accompanies them. You'll see, however, that this text is not a recipe.

Rather than explain all the steps needed to make the dish, they are meant to illuminate more than the photographs might reveal under a layer of mushroom soil, what's stuffed into a delicate zucchini blossom, what's beneath the cluster of tiny blossoms and bee pollen.

The list of ingredients does not include measurements because what's relevant here are the ingredients themselves, those elements reflective of the flow of each season — Vegetable, Forest, Ocean. These elements are divided into components. Some components are used to build even more complex components; others are used on their own in the dish.

The ingredients marked with an asterisk* belong to the set of essentials designed for each season, such as oils, garums, and broths. Recipes for those components, including specific measurements and instructions, can be found in the Gastronomique section (pages 330-351).

For professional chefs or curious minds that want a deeper dive into the Noma Kitchen, you need to scan a QR code to access the full technical recipes of each dish, complete with measurements and methods.

‍

‍

Final Thoughts

Restaurant cookbooks are a challenging task to do! From our experience, we know how hard it's to produce a book that captures a restaurant's essence. Noma 2.0 does this exceptionally well!

Like the restaurant itself, Noma 2.0 cookbook is brilliant! For foodies, chefs, artists, and art lovers, for thought-leaders and makers, and for the kind of reader who is compelled by the idea that sometimes one person can change everything.