I

feel crazy, I feel excited, I feel

happy. Of course, I’m nervous.

For the past two months I’ve

been waking up several times

a night and probably it’s got

something to do with the

complexity of the project. This is not

just a tiny little restaurant shack; it’s a

little village that we’re building, which

is so difficult the builders have had to

invent techniques to make it.

It’s all in – if it doesn’t work out there’s

nothing else. But I believe so much in this

space. We’re in Christianshavn, away from

the city, and situated right on a man-made

lake that’s a bird sanctuary, and behind

our property there’s a mound that’s part

of the old fortification of medieval

Copenhagen. With time this will be

like one big overgrown garden with

trees, plants, fruits, vegetables and these

11 buildings nestled in between. We’re

even going to put in a sauna right on

the lake. There are three greenhouses.

The smallest will be tropical, and for the

Aussies I’m proud to say we’ve ordered

two finger limes, so we can have a bit of

enu.

There was one concrete building on

the property when we got hold of it, which

was used to store marine equipment

during World War II and was later

abandoned. It’s 850 square metres with an

80-metre-long hallway and it’s the main

engine room, housing staff rooms, places

to grow stuff, places to hang out, places to

experiment, an ant farm, tanks for live

seafood like a Chinese restaurant, a room

for game where we can hang a whole deer.

We’ve built seven new buildings from

scratch and these are for guests. It sounds

like “wow”, but one is only seven square

metres. That’s the waiters’ room. Then

there’s a separate entrance building, one

for the restaurant, the bathrooms, a lounge

building, one for barbecuing and a private

dining room. They’re all connected by

glass corridors.

The philosophy is to always feel like

you’re outdoors – that’s the main spirit

here and it was something that came to us

after we did our pop-up in Tulum last year.

That was an outdoor restaurant with only

the tree canopy above us. We’d planned to

have skylights in this new space, but the

me➤

A.

Noma closed a year ago, and now is reborn, bolder than

ever. Chef and co-ownerRENÉ REDZEPItakesGourmet

Travelleron an exclusive tour of the new restaurant –

and outlines his ambitions for the years to come.

PhotographyJASON LOUCAS