Chef Rene Redzepi will temporarily shutter his Copenhagen restaurant Noma, which has taken the title of world’s best restaurant four times by an influential global ranking, to open a pop-up restaurant in Australia in 2016.
If the scheme sounds familiar, that’s because he did a similar stint in Japan earlier this year, likewise bringing his culinary ethos to the foodie elite in Tokyo, where he created a new menu using local, seasonal ingredients.
When he arrives in Sydney next year, the concept will be much the same. For 10 weeks, Redzepi will relocate his entire restaurant staff to Sydney, where they will host a pop-up restaurant serving a menu inspired by local, seasonal Australian ingredients at the invitation of the country’s tourism board.
For Tourism Australia, the project is meant to showcase the country as a premier food and wine destination with a bit of star-powered name-dropping.
For Redzepi, the pop-up allows the chef to reach diners halfway around the world. Instead of diners flying to Denmark, Noma comes to them.
The pop-up will also help open a new waterfront space in Sydney, the Barangaroo, touted as Australia’s first carbon-neutral development and a future food and drink destination.
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For inspiration, Redzepi has already set out on foraging trips scouting for local ingredients in Tasmania, Adelaide and Melbourne, meeting with producers, local communities and farmers.
“I’ve been to Australia many times – and each time I’m drawn to this unique landscape that’s so different from what we have at home,” he said in a promotional video.
“The ingredients are so different and the diversity’s huge.”
An Aussie fruit platter #nomaaustralia
A photo posted by Rene Redzepi (@reneredzepinoma) on Jul 28, 2015 at 3:11pm PDT
Redzepi’s not the only chef to eye Australia for expansion and increased exposure.
Celebrity British chef Heston Blumenthal also recreated his flagship Bray restaurant The Fat Duck in Australia by relocating his entire staff to the Crown Melbourne hotel for six months.
The pop-up opened in February this year.
Noma Australia will be open for lunch and dinner five days a week beginning in January 2016. The Danish restaurant has topped the World's 50 Best Restaurants awards by UK-based Restaurant magazine four times.
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