When Copenhagen went to Tokyo

A Woozy, Primal Meal at Noma Japan -- Grub Street:

"It turns out that Rene Redzepi doesn't much care for the term "pop-up." The chef of Noma — the perennial "No. 1" restaurant in the world — considers his theatrical, much-hyped, endlessly Instagrammed residency in Tokyo to be a "restaurant internship," he says. "And what better place to study than in a great food culture which dwarfs your own?" The chef is standing at the pass between the kitchen and the slightly drab-looking dining room, which is situated 37 floors up in the air, off the glittering lobby of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel among the towers of Tokyo's financial district. He's soft-spoken and wears a little scruff of a beard. Surrounded by giant, bewhiskered cooks, many of whom sport sailor's tattoos and are barking commands into the kitchen, he looks a little like the calm, diminutive captain on the bridge of a very civilized Nordic submarine.

Redzepi's Tokyo internship ends this week after a sold-out month-and-a-half-long run. Tickets were hard to come by (the wait list was famously 60,000 names long), but for the occasional professional glutton who comes through town, the staff set up a single place setting at the side of the pass, next to the dessert station, which is manned by a cheerful woman from Copenhagen named Mette. Propped on a little stool, you can feel the heat of the kitchen at your back and instead of waiters, the dishes are served by the cooks, and sometimes by Redzepi himself, who stops by for the occasional chat."



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