From the Washington Post article: Also: So what would fine dining look like if it actually were sustainable and not for the super wealthy? One thought: although the article emphasizes that a...
The restaurant in 2025 will morph into a “giant lab” that will host pop-ups and/or temporarily open for a season, as well as develop products for the company’s e-commerce arm. “Serving guests will still be a part of who we are, but being a restaurant will no longer define us,” read a note to customers on the restaurant’s website hailing the new incarnation as Noma 3.0. “Instead, much of our time will be spent on exploring new projects and developing many more ideas and products.”
Also:
Tyler Cowen, a professor of economics at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., and a devoted restaurant-goer, says that people are misinterpreting Redzepi’s intentions with the closure. Cowen doesn’t think the chef is arguing that he can’t make money with Noma and its grand artistic ambitions. It’s just that he can make more money doing other, perhaps less stressful, things.
“He’s so well-known now, he can just do private events, cook for billionaires, special weddings and work two months a year or whatever and make more than he’s making in the restaurant,” Cowen says. “He’s the one who’s going to earn from here on out. Why slave every night till like 2 a.m. in a restaurant when you can set your own schedule and price discriminate, charging the super wealthy?”
So what would fine dining look like if it actually were sustainable and not for the super wealthy? One thought: although the article emphasizes that a restaurant has to do it night after night, for the diners, this could very well be a special occasion. Maybe such feasts being a very occasional thing would make more sense? Catering for weddings comes to mind.
In a way, it seems like execution of food at the highest level seems like the absolute most transitory form of art that I can think of. Perhaps sustainability means the regular exit of restaurants...
In a way, it seems like execution of food at the highest level seems like the absolute most transitory form of art that I can think of. Perhaps sustainability means the regular exit of restaurants like Noma and a continuous cycle of people with new ideas and fresh patience filling the void. Consider a much smaller enterprise in NYC called Rezdora. The head chef stated plainly in a Mise en Place video that the business was unsustainable because he is bringing handmade pasta - a tremendously time-consuming effort - to an audience nightly.
It feels like diners are mining the humanity of the chef, clear-cutting their forest, and destroying a delicate ecosystem. Then we lament the collapse as though there was no hand in the resource exhaustion. In a way, exclusively ultra-rich clientele is analogous to the hand-planting restoration project would follow.
To this end, I would rather see popups. The Vox article makes a good point that a single meal at these restaurants is out of reach to a huge part of the world. My sense is that most people will not bemoan the closing of Noma because it has no bearing on their lives. Let food be a transitory performance.
From the Washington Post article:
Also:
So what would fine dining look like if it actually were sustainable and not for the super wealthy? One thought: although the article emphasizes that a restaurant has to do it night after night, for the diners, this could very well be a special occasion. Maybe such feasts being a very occasional thing would make more sense? Catering for weddings comes to mind.
Another possibility: fund the feast by making a show about it.
In a way, it seems like execution of food at the highest level seems like the absolute most transitory form of art that I can think of. Perhaps sustainability means the regular exit of restaurants like Noma and a continuous cycle of people with new ideas and fresh patience filling the void. Consider a much smaller enterprise in NYC called Rezdora. The head chef stated plainly in a Mise en Place video that the business was unsustainable because he is bringing handmade pasta - a tremendously time-consuming effort - to an audience nightly.
It feels like diners are mining the humanity of the chef, clear-cutting their forest, and destroying a delicate ecosystem. Then we lament the collapse as though there was no hand in the resource exhaustion. In a way, exclusively ultra-rich clientele is analogous to the hand-planting restoration project would follow.
To this end, I would rather see popups. The Vox article makes a good point that a single meal at these restaurants is out of reach to a huge part of the world. My sense is that most people will not bemoan the closing of Noma because it has no bearing on their lives. Let food be a transitory performance.