René Redzepi is closing Noma

Award-winning restaurant Noma, which sat atop the list of World’s 50 Best five times since its debut nearly 20 years ago, is slated to close at the end of 2024, according to a statement posted on the restaurant’s website. But the restaurant, its pioneering owner, and unique team of fermenting researchers and avantgarde chefs, are not disappearing altogether. Rather, they will transform the already innovative restaurant into a new kind of food space.

On a webpage titled “Noma 3.0“, Redzepi states that beginning in 2025, the restaurant will become “a pioneering test kitchen dedicated to the work of food innovation and the development of new flavors, one that will share the fruits of our efforts more widely than ever before.” The plan appears to include roving pop-ups around the world where the Noma team will gather ideas and flavors, occasionally bringing them back to Copenhagen for a season before embarking on a new research tour.

This is not the first time Redzepi has reinvented his restaurant. In 2017, the chef closed the doors of Noma, moved the restaurant to a new location and completely revamped the menu. It seems Redzepi still believes in the philosophy he espoused at the time: “Routine can be comforting, but it’s also a killer for your creativity.”