Noma Returns To Kyoto For A Pop-Up This Fall, Celebrating Its Finale As A Restaurant

Noma, the pioneering Nordic restaurant by chef René Redzepi, is returning to Kyoto this fall for another pop-up event.

In spring 2023, Redzepi had a highly successful 10-week pop-up dinner at Ace Hotel Kyoto. The tickets were said to have been sold out within nine minutes of their release.

This year, Noma Kyoto will feature the fall season of the ancient city from October 8 through December 18. The tickets will be released on May 14 at 7. a.m. EST and are expected to be gone very quickly. The dinner will cost € 540 for food and additional beverage pairings for € 300.

What is so special about Noma Kyoto?

First of all, Noma in Copenhagen is going to cease its regular operations at the end of 2024. Currently, the restaurant offers seasonal menus (“Ocean” until May 31, “Vegetable” from June 18 through September 6) but all seats are already sold out. Then the entire team of Noma is going to Kyoto for the pop-up until December 18. In other words, this is going to be the last chance to experience Noma’s restaurant service in the foreseeable future.

Second, Kyoto powerfully inspired Redzepi and his team in 2023. “During the sakura season in 2023, after many years of traveling and exploring all corners of Japan, our entire staff moved to Japan’s ancient capital . . . It was one of the most fulfilling and creatively electric periods in our team’s history,” he states on Noma’s website.

“Upon our return to Copenhagen, a question lingered in the air: Was that just the beginning? Our new friendships and connections with an incredible network of artisans, artists, farmers, and foragers made us wonder: Could we experience Kyoto in a different and very special season, like the autumn ‘koyo’, when the leaves change and the city becomes a canvas of colors? We started planning our way back almost immediately.”

Last year, Noma served original dishes inspired by Kyoto’s authentic food culture and spring ingredients, including white shrimp and gelee of peach tree sap on a miso-flavored crisp, sprinkled with ants from Nagano Prefecture (Noma has used ants for its citrusy acidity at the 2015 pop-up in Tokyo and in Copenhagen). Other dishes are more approachable, such as young bamboo shoots served in a chilled broth of smoked corn, jasmine tea and squid dashi.

For this fall, the menu is currently being developed, but “We will create things we never have before,” says Redzepi.

What Is Noma After Kyoto 2024?

The Kyoto dinner is exciting, but with no restaurant in existence, what is Noma going to be after that?

In 2025, Redzepi will transform the restaurant into a giant lab and work on innovative ideas for the development of new flavors. The results will be available on its e-commerce platform Noma Projects where you can already find unique products like Mushroom Garum, Wild Rose Vinegar and Corn Yuzu Hot Sauce.

As a business, with so many people to execute elaborate, outstanding jobs, the restaurant Noma could not operate financially sustainably, as Redzepi stated in media interviews in the past. Noma Projects can be not just a good revenue source for Noma but also an effective channel “to share the knowledge, innovations and flavors of Noma beyond the four walls of our restaurant in Copenhagen,” according to its website.

Currently, the Noma Projects team is experimenting with many potential products, targeting 50 items by the end of 2024; and then selecting the most viable products to inspire their users with new tastes and flavors.

Noma: A Constantly Evolving Concept

Noma is an organic, ever-evolving concept. In an interview with a Japanese magazine, Redzepi said, “I am happy when I am filled with curiosity. I am sad when I imagine I will repeat the same thing tomorrow.”

You cannot predict what Noma is going to be as Redzepi doesn’t want to know what Noma will be tomorrow.

When Redzepi opened Noma in 2003, the restaurant gained its reputation for its strong focus on Nordic cuisine. Now his landscape is global, reflecting his progressive mindset in reaching new, exciting discoveries. Before Kyoto, the Noma team had pop-up dinners in London, Sydney and Tulum, Mexico and his current dishes reflect various elements from these events.

What is certain is that this endless pursuit of something yet-to-be-known will remain the core of not just Redzepi’s mind but his team’s as well.

When you speak to Noma’s team members, you may get the impression as if they work for a religious organization. Ask team members of Noma what they do and what is special about it, their eyes sparkle with pride and excitement.

Redzepi tries to provide an environment for the members to focus on what they do too. For example, for Noma Kyoto 2023, the entire team of 103 staff moved to Kyoto, along with their children, spouses, and significant others.

One of those team members is Thomas Frebel, creative director, who joined Noma in 2009. He oversees all aspects of Noma’s activities, including the restaurant operations, the test kitchen, the fermentation lab and Noma Projects.

“We believe in the power of collective learning. We experience new things, brainstorm and go outside our comfort zone together. That way we can stay outside the comfort zone to discover even more new things,” said Frebel at the Noma Projects popup event in New York in April.

One of the eye-opening experiences for the team in Noma Kyoto 2023 was the Japanese-style service. “At a French restaurant, the server is standing, physically looking down on you and you may feel intimidated. At a traditional Japanese restaurant, your server’s eye level is the same as yours and you instantly feel at home. Our service staff needed to experience that feeling in person to understand what Noma wants to be,” Frebel said.

Through pop-ups, Noma gets immensely inspired by the local culture. But Noma may be inspiring the local culture too.

For example, in Kyoto last year, the kitchen team invented a new product “pumpkin bushi”, which is a vegetarian version of Japanese katsuo bushi (cured bonito). The team worked with a traditional katsuobushi producer in Kagoshima Prefecture and the innovative product was a success at the Kyoto pop-up. Now other katsuobushi producers started to make various types of vegetable bushi.

Let’s see what Noma becomes through the exchanges of inspiration with the world.