Noma - A stagier view of the worlds best restaurant, part two

Ok, so after exhausting quite a bit of material over the last couple of posts, and building this post up, the last of the Noma ones I believe I can dare milk. What is left to say, most of the readership on here knows how a kitchen works, often very closely as I am sure many of you will be reading this in the wee small hours, or on your phones in your splits. Others will simply understand the workings of a kitchen, and am sure you are eager to know what makes this one different to any other kitchen, after all what do they do that makes them 'the best restaurant in the world'

For the answer without the drivel, please feel free to skip down to the bottom, for those of you with a little more time on your hands, I will go into a little detail of the goings on during my meagre week.

My mornings consisted of preparing items for the days services with one of the section 1 chef de parties, these jobs were tiny Parisienne of cucumber, cucumber slices (both for a sea-urchin dish), fine chopped parsley and tarragon, doing some weigh outs, bio-dynamic grains for the scallop dish (55gm), laurum (bleak fish roe, 24gm), running up and down for containers, ice, many other things I cannot recall. Rolling many, many napkins for the langoustine dish. Then came the bane of my existence for my week, give me bloody beech nuts or veal threads anyway of the week, but no I got to polish the windows overlooking the kitchen, nightmare as you have to climb over the benches to do so, and stocks were reducing each day which you had to artfully move whilst the steam from them screwed up every chance of getting the glass crystal clear and spotless. This I'm afraid is about the only job I didn't sink my teeth into and do to the best of my ability, whilst I understand the need of the window being completely spotless, they can stick it, preferably where the sun don't shine. Sorry, shouldn't really go off on one, but you wouldn't believe how long the damn thing takes.

Anyway this would take us until about 11:30 when we had morning briefing, this is where the whole team, front and back of house would discuss the service, this is one of the first points of note, where they rise above the rest, each guest is researched, if you have ever eaten there, rest assured that they will try and find something out about you, whether you give them a heads up or not, if your email has a 'chef' in it, or the domain name on the email is in anyway connected to the food industry as a whole, rest assured they will be looking out for you, trying to know as much as they can so they can spot, especially, industry or industry journos, don't worry if there is nothing about you, you will still get very well looked after. There is a further briefing before evening service. Every member of staff is present, including stagier at this briefing, as often if a guest comes from a country that none of the paid guys come from then a stagier might be asked to be available for a kitchen tour afterwards to assist with translation. I found the depth of detail towards the guests amazing.

Ok so now staff lunch..... Oh that's right, isn't one, chefs divide to their stations, stagiers are assigned duties if working on service, many hands are grabbed to build chestnuts (more on this in a minute), and all else back up to the production areas. Then we would be given our jobs for the afternoon. For me this consisted mostly of pickles.....







7 different vegetables, in 7 different pickles. The sheer amount of these required to cater for up to 80-90 covers a day is staggering, and my requirements for this was instructed in 'layers' a 1.5 litre container, capable of holding 2 'layers' well compacted, each day I prepared a minimum of 4 layers of each vegetable. Pretty time consuming and the bulk of my afternoon work, occasionally I would be helped on days of 4 layers each service, but generally would happily plod with this, to be honest this is the kind of job I like to be given on a stage, similar to the 4kg of tiny morels I was given by Jocky at the fat duck, technically simple to do, so a minimal amount of focus required, which allowed me to be able to watch all else around me, absorbing as much as I could in my short time there.
Ok a small digression at this point for this, to me, the reason for a stage at any restaurant is to gleam as much as you can in your time there, to me this cannot be achieved if you are stuck in a heavily detailed task for hours on end, you will only see the job at hand, missing out on what's going on, watch what's going on and you will more than likely screw up what you are working on, so my advice is take the jobs that the full-timers hate, the more mundane the better (NOT window cleaning, I might add) so you can get a bigger picture, and not just the chervil stems, again more on this in a minute.
Anyway, often just a few minutes before service a small crew of stagier would be asked to build chestnuts. A wonderful dish to eat, and interesting to out together, only available on the 12 course so at least not one per guest was needed, Sam the sous chef would take care of the basic prep of these, already shelled by the production team, he would peel the remaining skin off about a 5 litre container each day, then for each service slice some truly paper thin, and the remainder required into simply very thin slices. Then 4 or 5 of us would take the thinnest ones and put 2 together so they stood to a point, 4 per plate, then some peeled chopped walnuts were sprinkled in the plate, now the fun bit, anywhere between 10-14 pieces of the next thickness were stood as upright as possible (see picture), using the paper thin ones and the walnuts only to hold them, a great laugh as a small army of chefs tried to build these together, concentrating, focused, and often cursing as one ill placed chestnut could send them all crashing down, leaving you to start again, and with the first guests arriving into the restaurant, no time to dally. A few were left out for the opening tables, the rest, cloched with 1 litre containers and transferred through to the walk in, to be collected as required during service. Now can you see the relevance of describing trying to get through the snacks section?







The dish is finished with a micro mustard cress, and a bleak-fish butter sauce then at the table, lovely and with the 'how the hell did they do that' factor

After this, I returned upstairs to continue with pickles, other jobs could intersperse, picking herbs, putting sol stock (seaweed) on, razor clams were a nice distraction one day, some 40kg of them, pulsing with life and a rich aroma of the sea, these were popped out of the shell, trim cleaned and reserved for a future staff meal, the remainder trayed up and frozen, to tenderise, once frozen they were bagged up in 10's and transferred to the main store across the car park (sorry no description, never went there)

Whilst pickles were underway, other chefs would be doing their thing, generally Leo the CDP would be organising the prep for section 1 and spent most of his time, cutting to shape different fruits, vegetables for stagieres to finish, the leeks and the apples for:-






The veg for the pickles, trying to get the stove space to reduce the stocks. A little time now needs to be spent here, explaining James, the AM chef de partie. In the room off to the side of production, was James' domain.

James, during my stage, was the chef de partie in charge of the AM shift, starting at 6am, they fired everything up, and started the Noma ball rolling each day, His team of 4-5 had a list as long as your arm (assuming you the reader have a pretty average length arm that is, if not please envisage this at this point), to collect from the basement at the other end of the park. As well as other duties I have no idea of before 8am, why? Simply because I was sleeping.

During the main part of the day, they cracked on with a number of tasks, from the crisp chicken skin, and rye toast for the sandwich in snacks, to making, drying and slicing the corrugated bread for the toast snacks, James' biggest challenge was that he had control of the only heat sources in production. 4 induction rings, 2 combi ovens. Not to bad perhaps, but up to 30 chefs need stuff cooked, and your stuff is ALWAYS the most important, however you have to convince James, why yours is the most important, my admiration with whoever has that role, you have not only to get your own work done, make most of the juices for the juice pairing menu, and get the huge amount of staff food done, make sure the dishwash area is kept in at least an orderly mess (sorry forgot to say, that's in there too), as he is the one who polices the stove and ovens, if he doesn't agree it it doesn't cook, so out of the chefs to stay on side of, after Rene, this is your man.

So the remainder of the afternoon was generally ensuring enough mis-en-place was in place for the sections to reload for the evening, and to break the back of a few of the more long winded tasks, chervil stems etc. Now I have been using the stalks off herbs as main ingredients in my dishes for some time, the most basic I guess being the Rosemary skewer, but also make infused dressings and oil from fine parsley stems that kind of thing, but chervil stems, they are in a league of their own, very nice to look at and nice to eat, but for a stagier, quite simply a crap job, mundane, but requires all your focus. Each 3branch sprig was removed, then very carefully each leaf is removed leaving as much branch structure as possible, then the leaves..... well, on my chervil stem day, went in the bin as there was no immediate need for them. If you stage here, just make sure you only get one batch to do, very time consuming and by stem number 3, you've learned all you're going to about this task.

At 4:30 the production sous calls a set time to have your work boxed and fridged, then the kitchen has a deep clean, from tile top to floor, only the walk in fridge doesn't get a full going over, not a problem with 20 odd chefs picking a piece of wall, and a further 5 or so armed with squeegees and cloths. After the clean, staff food is served, the only break of the day, officially 30 minutes, but translates into good 45 if you had your afternoon prep sorted. The meals for staff when I was there, whilst a little cauliflower heavy, were simply fantastic, by now, anything would have been great, everyone survives on a diet of stolen cucumber trim and apples all day (and in my case imperfect pickle prep) so you are starving and ready for anything. But in fairness to the AM team, it's lovely simple homely food, pies, curries etc, load your plate high you will need it.

After evening service briefing at 5:45, it was either back up to production for the night jobs, or if you have shown any affinity in it's construction, chestnuts.

I will list the jobs tackled in the evenings a little later on, but just to finish off the timescale of an average day. Prep ensued for the rest of the evening, but the pace a little less frantic, whether this was down to simply winding down by all, still a huge amount of work is done by a huge amount of people, or whether once the morning shift had gone home, there was more space for everybody, the fight for containers was lessened the sheer volume of football throughout the kitchen was less? Not sure of the reason, just that is was less pressured.

Around 10:30 when the kitchen was slowing down from service we would get communication to start drawing to a close, the production sous would call 10-15 minutes, by which time we needed to be finished and fridged ready to clean, some split off to strip the cold room which got it's daily deep clean at this time, which allowed for easier ordering by the chefs. After clear down and service had wound down, there would be a steady stream of guests being shown around the restaurant, one lovely touch is that they would pair the guest up with a chef who had the same native tongue if possible. then once everything had died down, about 11.45 there would be a kitchen meeting, this was to cover any issue discovered during the day, and to avoid future ones, and also to discuss the following lunches guests.

After this we (the stagiers) busted it, but the main team would start their planning for the next day, putting MEP in the right place, hoarding containers, cloths, c-folds. Should you go to noma as a stagier, take some blue wipe down cloths, rags, these are gold dust there, they will love you for it, think of it as a kind of barter system. I digress, sorry. The chefs would sort last minute mis en place. by which time I was in the seven-eleven near my apartment picking out the next days breakfast, and tumbling into my cot. Biggest advice, unless you thrive on no sleep, get accommodation not too far away, it will pay dividends by the end of day three.


The night jobs seemed much less pressured than the day work, with the AM team leaving the building between 7 & 8 pm, left a noticeable hole in the amount of chefs on the floor, the jobs that came out were the longer ones and more time to converse and find out about the colleagues from all over the world, also giving their time for the cause. My first night was beech nuts, mentioned before so I will not labour much further. Outer skins were removed before we got them, so our job was the removal of the hard shell, then toast and rub until White. To be honest this was not a hard job at all, anyone who has tried to peel a perfect walnut half will testify that nuts can be challenging (which we did some of these also, only to be told half way through not to worry, they were for chopping), it is just with the beech nut it's demoralising, myself and 2 other chefs after the first hour, looked at our achievement, we hadn't even peeled enough to cover the bottom of a 1 litre container, many hours later we had a half litre and was deemed enough. Thanks fully the scallops that they were for, were coming in too small so the dish changed and no more were needed all week. That was pretty much Monday evening done, I would love to recount Wednesday evening but as I had lunch, then was given the evening off, I merely typed up a few notes, had a couple of beers, watched a movie and was out, for the lunch post if you missed it, you can find that HERE

Thursday was an odd day, it ran its course, albeit with enough pickle prep to keep me going for the evening as well, interspersed with prepping a couple of boxes of sea-urchin (lovely), but the mood was odd, maybe it was the fact from 6-11pm I had most of the room to myself, no-one was in the mood to talk so was the longest night, I left that evening wondering what the hell was the bother, quite depressed and pissed off, but so everyone seemed, not the best service by all accounts at the evening meeting, quite a few things could have gone better. just one of those days I guess.

Friday was on the other hand an excellent day, the morning went as usual, with the fun of the stocks on section 1 stoves in desperate need so window cleaning was nigh on impossible with the constant steam of reduction screwing up every wipe. so bugger it I've given it my best shot, it stays like that. usually move up to production, but we had a private table in upstairs that evening. so the prep was a little more for all, and yep, more pickles, quickly (as I could) busted them out, with a little more sea-urchin prep. after tea Matt came up to run the event, he had a couple of black face pigs hanging in the cold room for a week or so, which he pulled everyone to see how he butchered it down, a well held masterclass, the then took the loins and slow roasted them using its own fat, this he incorporated into the evenings party menu, thankfully during the evening he called me over and carved a hunk of it off the rump end for me to try, absolutely incredible.

As stagier in production, when there is an event upstairs, you are actively involved in service as the menu is a very slightly shorter menu (not always) than the main room, including the snacks menu, some could be done ahead of time, but my favourite 'Toast'

Takes a good 3-4 minutes each to prepare, depending on the quality of herbs and skill of chef. so it was all hands on deck, and as Matt and Yannick (production sous) had taken over most of the bench space upstairs was a very nice breather from just prep. we were also very involved in the service of the food to the guest, as in the main restaurant the chefs deliver a majority of the food, not so much the snacks as they are done 4 portions to a plate so the waiters take those, but for each other course, every plate entered the room at the same time, place in front of the guests at the same time. Then all the oohs and aahhh's are in unison. we swiftly vacated the room, so Matt could introduce each dish.

service took up a lot of the evening, and with long chats with Matt about the pork and various other banter about food, didn't get much else done except helping him (lazy git). I also had the opportunity to try dishes not on the menu with my lunch including the razor clam in parsley gel, horseradish, yogurt mousse, sorrel granite and the walnut ice cream. this is why I love my job, truly.

Saturday was mental, truly mental. One of the first things Matt told me was they didn't encourage lunch bookings in the private room, due to the sheer difficulty in logistics making it happen as the production was in full swing during the day. So today was lunch 43, plus 10 private dining. then dinner was 45 plus 12 private dining. absolute maximum covers, so everyone was in full swing, for me the day went pretty much the same we were more cramped and moved into the back room due to the lunch function, but that was fine, about 20 of us in there at one point, then Tom from the snacks decided he wanted a circulation of air to help dry his leathers so opened the window, and with the temperature barely above freezing one by one, we sneaked back into the production kitchen, prepping perched on the edge of benches, using balance only Russian gymnasts have the possibility of achieving. lunch went well, we cleared down, had tea and got ready for evening service. A mammoth chestnut session ensued with most tables on 12 course, Sam Miller the sous not very happy when I asked if there was more chestnuts and still 10 plates short, he seemed a little, well, miffed. with all done I made my way swiftly upstairs before Sam found whoever had not ordered enough chestnuts.

Once upstairs, saw Leo with the obligatory, "what now?" he asked me to pick a few herbs, then do some weigh outs, ok what then? he said that was it, but there was a party again so I could just get involved with that. Ok so picked the herbs, just a few so no worries, 20 recipes of weigh outs for the coming week well should have been a cinch, as it was, however the ingredients to weigh took 5 minutes to gather, the plastic containers to store them in took the rest of the evening, with me eventually having to rob them from sections whilst backs were turned, good fun though. we also had the function running which again Matt looked after, I spent most of my time helping out ( a bit more efficiently than the previous day), again being given some wonderful pork to sample. This time he slow cooked the shoulder from the day before and finishes it in the fat and juices of yesterdays pork, well take all that flavour and condense it into the glaze for a low temp working muscle, Bloody hell it was beyond amazing.

Being the last day of the week before they close for two days, the wind down is more relaxed everyone is planning their weekend jaunts except for the 4 on projects, our last job involved every spare hand. 2 gastro trays of parsley and lovage for oil, blanched and squeezed and in need of being laid out pretty much leaf by leaf to dry at room temp for the weekend. at one point there was 15 of us on the job and still took us until 1am to finish, but was a good laugh with such a big crew.

The final meeting of the week then happened, final plans made, discussion of the following Tuesdays lunch guests, and then to projects. For those not in the know, now is the chance for the Noma chefs to cook their own creations, unlikely that they will ever make the menu, but an opportunity to express themselves Noma style to the whole team. It is not only a chance for them to express themselves, it is expected that 1 member from each section (at least) comes up with a dish each week. 4 plates of each are done up, as there is a big turnout, Best I go through them dish by dish.

first up was Oliver, my CDP from section 1, he had an idea to attempt to replicate the growing conditions on Jersey to get his own crop of Jersey royals to grow, they had been in touch with a farmer who was ploughing seaweed into his soil to get the same soil and the first crop would be ready to test next year, for the dish in question, as the spuds were a little way off, he used the vintage potato from the Noma menu, with some barely cooked clams, pickled seaweed, seawater gel, crown dill seeds and a cappuccino of the clam juice, the story behind it was very interesting and I wish him all success in replicating the potato, although I truly feel Royals may only grow with the flavour they do, because they are grown on Jersey.

Second up was Yo-Bo from section 2, his dish was a slow braised pork tongue cucumber, celery, cauliflower, slices of horseradish, finished with a ham hock glaze, very hearty and also light at the same time, fitted perfectly with the Noma brief, however for a dish in the middle of a 12 course menu after 10 snacks, thought there was simply too much food on the plate.

Third was Matt, the head chef who all week I had seen him prepare the cauliflower for the menu, during the prep he had noticed the cauliflower stalk where the leaves joined the stem had visual appeal, he had squared the stem off, fried it as you would a piece of meat, then held it for 2 hours in a juniper emulsion, he then served it up with some purple cabbage, raw cauliflower, spinach rounds and a sauce made of the split emulsion and some of the pork juices from the last 2 days private dining menus. This dish excelled (he is Head chef after all!) the stalk tastes earthy on first bite, then slowly the juniper comes through on second chew, then a little garlic, flavour deepening with every motion in the mouth, outstanding.

Last up was Carol, who's inspiration for her dessert was honey and mead, she made a mead parfait, covered with a honey gel, served with a rosehip sorbet and crisp bread. this dish has possibilities, but she made the gel with agar and was a little too brittle and the bread tuille was quite thick. these minor issues aside another great dish with clean obvious flavours packed into small packages.

And that was it, a week at the worlds best restaurant done, the option to join the guys to sample the left over wines of the week was there, but as I had booked an early flight, I passed. It was now nearly 3am and needed my bed, even if it was only a couple of hours. I had a few conversations with Matt, Sam and the purchasing sous (and the guy who organises stages) Viktor thanking them and offering my two penneth of advice before heading my way into the very cold night.

There was more to it than I've written, but am tired of typing now and want to get this post out to those who are interested, to you I thank you for your support and for being the reason for me logging this experience, it's lovely to re-live it through words. if this is the first time you have seen this blog, thank you for dropping by, please stick around got some interesting things coming up, such as why I no longer need a stock pit to make the best sauces I have ever tasted, amongst others.

If anyone has any questions, criticisms or just random banter, please leave a comment, email me or follow my witter on Twitter

Thank you, have a great weekend.

NOMA - A Stagier view of the worlds best restaurant, part one

Having never spent more than a day away from my family in many years, saying good bye to my kids and my wife and mum to be of number 5 was a horrendous wrench, I had set this up in November not really thinking the ramifications through fully as to the impact of this trip on my family, but Sally is the strongest woman I know and the kids are inherently good natured, and under severe instructions to help mummy so hopefully the rest of the week will be manageable for them, as for myself, whilst the wrench is a horrible feeling, by tomorrow I will not have time to think of anything other that what I have been instructed to do.

I have seen a blog, and our own pastry chef, 'G' who has done a week already, have regaled me with the prep that can be given, pine needles (not too bad) veal threads or fibres (extremely bad) but truth is, the restaurant is a constantly evolving one, all I know is that a sizeable force of both paid and unpaid spends hour upon hour painstakingly preparing for each service, each job a mission for small teams of chefs to ensure the chefs in service have all the perfect prep they need, when they need it, how painstakingly I was yet to find out.




The walk each morning was brisk to say the least, running water frozen and the breeze cutting across Knippelsbro bridge froze me to my core, painful on day one, but the rest of the week was essential to ensuring I arrive to work awake. A swift left turn and through a small industrial area and Noma sat at the end, I walked around a while wondering where the heck to get in, finally see a door where a chef was working in the instantly distinguishable brown apron, with a few butterflies in my stomach approached the cook, who very politely broke away from his work to tell and guide me to where I would get changed. Whilst getting changed I met my chef de partie, Oliver who had been briefed on who I was and where I was from previously, he showed me to my first (an consequently my most worked on task for the week) the pickles prep.

After a short while of about 15 pickles, I was taken for a show round of the working areas by head chef Matt Orlando, the kitchen is spilt over 2 floors.



Downstairs, the main service kitchens, section 1, is the cold section, and where I spent my week. They do a considerable amount of cooking on the cold section, however a lot of what this section does is about assembly, and they have a (small) amount more space than the other areas, just adjacent is section 2, responsible for all the cooked items, from cauliflower to reindeer tongue. Behind these two sections is a door through to the potwash, where their 1(YES ONE) kitchen porter Alieu works, although he doesn't get in till 11am, so a large majority of what you need, you wash it yourself, but I digress. Alongside here is a corridor through to the pastry section and the walk in fridge, however the corridor contains probably the busiest sections, snacks, from here, chefs work shoulder to shoulder throwing out the 1st ten or eleven plates you receive, madness ensues from this section, but sets the tone for the meal, containing a large amount of Noma signatures, such as the radishes in a pot, complete with the perfect malt 'soil', perfectly cooked, impossibly peeled, delicately smoked quails egg. The chicken skin smorrebrod. Quite amazing, what is also amazing is how the hell to get through the corridor when snacks are in full swing.

Through from the snacks section in the pastry section, quite a decent size, but again as the appetiser is plated up here and a further 4 chefs are needed to keep the section running, it feels cramped as Rosie and her team buzz around all day long. At the end of the section is the main walk in coldroom for downstairs, which is used by all sections, hence my comment on trying to get through snacks every time you needed to get something from there, ie chestnuts, which I will explain a little later on.

This concludes downstairs, well not quite, outside through a door accessible only through snacks (again) there are a number of storage sheds, which contain veg (when it's not freezing, so not now) to cleaning utensils (different shed, so don't worry) to a small BBQ area, I mean small, like one of the small drum ones you see in a DIY store, where the pastry cook the grilled pear for the pear and pine dessert. Then we enter through the furthest door and travel on upstairs, to where I spent a majority of my time.





First thing you see upon climbing the stairway is a nicely carpeted area, with bookcases adorning the furthest wall, including a sizeable collection of great cookbooks. To the right is the 'staffroom' a private dining area for up to 15 guests, tastefully and minimally adorned, a very lovely room, to the left through 2 huge glass doors was the main production kitchen (pictured), through here also just off to one side is the AM kitchen, the AM shift starting at 6AM to start things going, from collecting provisions from the main store, to getting stocks and sauces on, they in turn for the ungodly start time, were out by 8pm when I was there, although this can run later during busy periods. In this kitchen was the only stove and ovens for upstairs, and the chef de parties job was to allocate time for the other chefs to be able to do their cooking, and art in itself, they were also responsible for staff feeding, something again I will come to later. Beyond the production kitchen is a massive beamed room, multi purpose as staff would eat here, meetings would take place and overflow preparation would occur here also, Victor the produce sous chef kept the veg and herbs in here as it was still too cold when I was there, Matt the head chef also had his desk in here, although I can't say it was used much as it's very much a hands on kitchen, all the time.

Ok filled up quite a lot of space with that, so am going to leave it here as my iPad software really isn't happy with me going on and on, and I hope this is not the case with you, so to make this a little more manageable will post another in a few days, a little more bite size shall we say.




Next I will run through some of the work and the structure of the day telling the ups and downs of the worlds best restaurant, thanks for reading, and if anyone wishes to comment, please do either here, or tweet me on www.twitter.com/esenses

Laters.

Noma, my take on the meal at the best restaurant in the world

Awarded the best restaurant in the world for 2010, Noma as a chef is not so much a restaurant to visit for a special event, but more a pilgrimage to worship at the temple of natural cuisine, at it's peak. And it's for this reason alone (and meeting Rene Redzepi last November) that I decided to do a stage there, here and now (January 2011). The stage itself will be subject to a separate post, a glimmer of this you will see over on www.thestaffcanteen.com shortly. This one is about a wonderful surprise I received from head chef Matt on the second day of my stage.

Working, it's much a normal day as I can gather from the one day I have been here previously, I was looking forward to the mornings prep, and more so to the promise I was given to work service on my section, instead of production upstairs, don't get me wrong, without production this eatery could not exist, but service is where it's at, the coal-face, the heat of battle (choose your own metaphor). After we had set up on section, we still had about a half an hour before our section would see any action, so I was sent upstairs for a short job, to await kick off, by this time, snacks was already taking off in a big way, one of the busiest sections in the kitchen by a mile. Anyway, 2 minutes into a lovely job of picking tarragon leaves, I felt a tap on my shoulder, looked around and Matt was gesturing me to one side, I thought this was my service call and called that my job would have to be taken over, once at the side, he asked as there was a table free would I like to make up a '2 top', now booking a table here is nigh on impossible, unless you have the day off on the 1st of the month, and the utmost patience on a telephone, and also can book 3 months in advance, with no real qualms about which service, which day, after all travel arrangements can be made afterwards, but here was a table handed to me on a plate (poor pun I know, I'm sorry) as I started writing this, I was still stuffed filled with amazing memories of one of the great meals of my life. The only regret is my dining companion couldn't be my beautiful wife. It was however one of the other stagier, Brian Skinner, who proved to be great enthusiastic company, and the taker of a majority of the photographs in this post, for which I thank you very much, great pictures chef.

Anyway, without further ado, the meal itself.

As mentioned before, snacks is where it begins. The menus are 7 course and 12 course. As we were probably not going to have the opportunity any time again soon, we both opted 12, again wouldn't want to walk away from the opportunity so rarely given.

Snacks came thick and fast

Branches

First was already on the table, malt crisps. Cheeky little number hidden amongst the branches of the table decoration, very light nice, just a little bit forgettable, not so the:-

Lichen

Crisp fried moss, cep powder. Wow, something so very simple, moss deep fried and dusted with a cep salt, one bite, bliss

Leathers

Next up came sea-buckthorn leather, pickled Rose petals great visually and a beautiful refreshing burst of acidity, cleaning the palate, leaving us wanting just one more, simplicity again, perfectly executed.

The snacks were building up on our table as we tried to keep up with the dish introductions, and taking pictures. But even in the face of this hardship, you will be glad to know we battled on.

Leeks

Next, perched on the edge of the table was 2 whole leeks, looking half cooked, I mean half! The root end was crisped up, the White looked blanched, and the top most definitely raw, this had been blanched, deep fried at the very root, and stuffed with a smoked garlic puree, a great bite, even if it was odd to see guests in a 2 Michelin star restaurant chow down on whole leek, very playful and perfectly executed.

Next came a battered old cake tin, I've better kept ones in my house with the kids forever in and out. Inside was 2 little purple discs, introduced as

Biscuits

Savoury biscuit, speck, pine shoot, blackcurrant, a wonderful light crisp biscuit, moist speck, dusted with an intense blackcurrant powder and topped with tiny pine shoots, crisp, fresh, sharp. Wonderful bite again.

Sandwich

Chicken skin, rye bread, smoked cheese, lumpfish roe.

A play on a smorrebrod, traditional Danish open sandwich. Served upside down, with the crisp chicken skin on the bottom.

Smoked quail egg

The softest, most perfectly cooked quail egg, looked like it was strongly smoked, but the flavour was very delicate, yet lingered on the palate for just the right amount of time. Just glad I was never asked to peel these during my working time there.

Radishes in a pot

Pretty much a signature dish now, loads of fun and felt like a kid pulling the vegetable out of the 'dirt' the aerated herb yogurt adding to the depth of flavour, the crisp fresh radish not too strong, simple. And the best soil I have ever tasted, we make a few different soils at work for this and that, but this felt in the mouth like when I came off my bicycle as a child, crunchy, dry, but obviously with a deep flavour of malt. Just great.

Herb toast

Extremely light undulating toast, dotted innumerable times with a deep smoked cods roe emulsion, filled to capacity with an array of crisp fresh herbs, topped with (amazingly) the skin from duck stock, a lovely savoury topping to the best snack served. They were all amazing but this stood that little bit higher.

AEbleskiver

Traditionally a sweet item, a light bun with apple and powdered sugar, this one was a savoury version, very light centred with pickled cucumber and studded with anchovy. Not to my taste, the bun was superbly executed, the cucumber a refreshing respite from the dough, but the fish. Not needed, they look funky but the taste, even for my outlandish palate, was an ingredient too far. Not that it impeded on my meal in any way, just not the best from an array of brilliance.

This, amazingly was the end of the amuses, generally the free little extras given by the chef to whet the appetite, and to also buy time for the kitchen to prepare the rest of the menu, we had been sitting a good hour and worked our way through 10 dishes already! Now our appetites well and truly rearing to go.

Bread service, goat butter, pork fat

Sourdough was amazing, served with a goats butter, and a rendered pork fat with crackling.

Appetiser:-

Leek and apple

A very playful beginning, the leeks and the apple prepared so you have to look closely to tell which is which. The leeks cooked nice and soft, the apple raw and crisp, interspersed with the two gels, and each spire topped with the smallest, strongest flavoured thing I have ever tasted, the kelp crisp, fantastic, easy to make, added wonders to this already great dish.

Dried scallop, grains, rocket, beech nuts, squid ink sauce

DON'T GET ME STARTED on beech nuts, you will have to wait a little for my stagier post to find out why, anyway back on point, dehydrated scallop, 4 biodynamic grains in a rocket emulsion, toasted beech nuts, squid ink sauce (beech nuts were lovely and stood out on the plate BTW)

Hugely intense flavours from the scallop, lightened by the accompaniments, harmony in 4 bites.

Chestnut, walnut, mustard cress, bleak-fish sauce

How do they do that, very in sliced raw chestnuts, standing on end (I know how, had to build a few, great effect for the guest, card building for the chefs), chopped walnuts, mini mustard cress is brought to the table, one of the chefs then sauces tableside, a rich beurre blanc with the roe of bleak fish, rich & fresh, outstanding dish. Brian, my dining companion, made a great comment that tackling this dish felt like kicking over sandcastles as children.

Langoustine, oyster emulsion, sol seasoning

next is delivered a huge, warm rock. The payfulness of the presentation here adds greatly to the theatre of it all. Perched on this is a single plump langostine, fried on one side and just shown the pan on the other. proper finger food as we dragged the perfectly cooked (partly due to the residual heat in the rock) langostine through a wonderful oyster and parsley emulsion, seasoned with a seaweed powder.

Oyster in a pot, beach herbs, tapioca, cream

As we lifted the lids, memories of clean beaches as children rushed back, the seawater and rocks, with a few interspersed shells heightening the sensation, in the main shell a lightly cooked oyster, the biggest I have ever seen, cut into 4 segments for ease of eating, coated with a variety of herbs, some tapioca and a hint of cream. Yet another success in a wonderful journey.

cauliflower, pine, horseradish

Quite simply the star of the show, having seen this prepared at the book launch, had been longing to try this one, and it most certainly didn't dissapoint, caramelized cauliflower with a pine salt, sauce of whey and pine oil. Amazing and the best yet.

Celery root, roast in goat butter, black truffle, sorrel

wedge of tiny celeriac bulb, confit then roasted in goats butter, with a hugely rich truffle emulsion, as it sounds this is one of few 'hearty dishes' the sorrell cutting through the richness of the rest of the plate nicely.

Pickled vegetables, bone marrow, roast pork sauce

This is the dish my wife is most envious of from the whole menu, and with good reason. again a play on tradition, where in Denmark would be normal to have roast pork with pickled vegetables, here the vegetables take centre stage. & vegetables in 7 different pickles, bone marrow and a pork sauce, my nly comment on this whilst it was very lovely, don't get me wrong. When eating the dish as a whole, it is nigh on impossible to distinguish the varying pickles. when rolling them (my job for the week) you can easily, however the guest perspective here, I couldn't. so prep for preps sake?

Reindeer Tongue, apple, lemon thyme

Slow cooked sous-vide for 12 or 24 hours, depending on the weight of the tongue, served with a rich reindeer stock, lemon theym, and every bit of the apple. wedges cooked in goat butter, pickled apples, powdered skin (cloying in the mouth) and the seeds, but not so. A malt pasta dough, cut into apple seed shapes and lightly fried to mimick crispy seeds, a real manly dish to finish off the savoury elements of our meal.

Dessert 1

Grilled pear, pine parfait, pear and thyme oil sauce

Sweet warm pear, grilled to order on the outside BBQ, paper thin slice of fresh pear to mask the presentation with a full coating of flowers and leaves, the sauce is an unctious syrup of pear, split with an intense thyme oil, and the showpiece on the plate the pear parfat, the smallest amount of parfait mix in a vacuum box, cold boiled in a chamber vacuum machine and frozen, intense fragrance and flavour of a walk in the forest, this dish works on every level.

Dessert 2

Bitters

Ok stop the press, knew this was going too well, and before I damn this dish I want to point out that its quite a good dish, just in the wrong place on the menu IMO, had this come before the pear I would understand the transition from savoury world to sweet world, but between the 2 true dessert dishes, no, not for me.

Milk ice cream nice and soft, sandwiched in a crisp frozen (liquid nitrogen?) whey ice, surrounded with a sorrel jus. technically excellent. before dessert fine. where I received it, sorry no.

Dessert 3

Ollenbrod, skyr ice cream, warm milk espuma.

wow, what an end, the perfect pudding wish the portion was 10 times bigger, because even though I was stuffed silly by this point, I could have kept eating this all week.

A rye porridge soaked in ale, served warm, under a milk foam with the chill of the icelandic yogurt ice cream, as I said "WOW"

petits fours

after 4 and a half hours, we moved to the lounge for coffee, we were presented with the petit fours

Smoked bone marrow caramel

a slow release toffee, the smokiness renewed on every movement in the mouth, a standout petit four

Chocolate coated meringues

As in his book, was only surprised at the size of them, massive, flavourful, a dessert in themselves

Choc and fennel coated chocolate chips

Potato chips, dipped in chocolate with fennel seeds, simple tasty and a good end to a great meal.

I struggled my way back to the apartment, thankful of being given the rest of the day off, amazed by what I had been given to eat, amazed at the seamlessness of the service, the attentiveness of not only the front of house but the chefs who would top up our water whilst walking past, one very well oiled machine.

The rest of my week can be glimpsed over on Staff Canteen and a fuller version will appear on here in a week or so.

Now the question, is it the best restaurant in the world, having seen both sides of the operation as stagier and guest my answer is, err.. dunno.

This is not because I feel it isn't, its because I do not know enough of the others on the list, but I can honestly say it does deserve that recognition, is an essential part of that list, and would be surprised to see it merely retain it's 2 star status in the michelin this March.

My thanks for this experience begin with Rene Redzepi, who whilst absent during my time on a well earned break, I beleive, runs a very tight ship and ensures all stagiers are welcomed into the fold and as guests are excellently welcomed by both the kitchen and Restaurant teams. My thanks to Matt Orlando (Head chef), and Sam Miller (sous chef) for ensuring my lunch service went as smoothly as the ones we worked, especially to Matt who made the available table mine. Also at this point, to the guests who were booked for my table and couldn't make it. my eternal gratitude.

To the whole team of chefs and stagier, for making the most mundane tasks fun due to great company.

For my club owner, for helping me go, by giving me the use of one of his apartments in Copenhagen, close to Noma, much needed was the short walk each day after work.

And finally to my wife Sally, for picking up the slack at home to allow me the time to get this out of my system, without your support I am nothing, I love you. please follow her on twitter @lallypo, not much to say, but when she has its great and will make you laugh.