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.