An American in Copenhagen

Noma’s Daniel Giusti: A chef at the top of the world: Dan Giusti, formerly of Washington’s 1789, runs the kitchen at Noma in Copenhagen, where his long days include reading the mind of executive chef and owner Rene Redzepi and managing the tight orchestration of service at what some call the world’s best restaurant.

A revealing insight from the Washington Post into the role an American chef now plays at the famous Danish restaurant Noma's.

... at Noma in Copenhagen, which recently regained the title of No. 1 restaurant in the world, the mistake is decidedly out of line. Giusti, the former Washingtonian charged with running the kitchen for executive chef and owner Rene Redzepi, knows that guests don’t travel thousands of miles and battle weeks for a reservation to dine on an incomplete dish, even if few would ever find anything wrong with it.

This is something the 29-year-old Giusti understands better than his charges: You cannot let the standards slip, no matter how insignificant some might seem to an outsider or even to a cook. A restaurant still striving for its third Michelin star can never compromise. It cannot compromise on service, plating, decor, ingredients and certainly not on the amount of lumpfish sperm required for a dish conceived by Redzepi in the test kitchen upstairs.