My lunch at the disgraced Noma L.A.

Back in January, I had no idea I’d be strolling into the most controversial eatery since Sweeney Todd’s: Noma L.A., the first American pop-up from Rene Redzepi. 

Earlier this year, I splurged on two seats for opening week. In the days before I sat in the hilltop idyll under palm trees and sunbeams, Redzepi of the acclaimed Noma in Copenhagen went from the most influential chef on the planet to the most notorious one. So I ended up walking past protesters last Friday to see, smell, and taste—despite the brouhaha. 

Why? I wanted to check out the latest draw from the Noma team, famous for putting Redzepi’s city on the food map, eschewing luxury ingredients for backyard delicacies and adding New Nordic cuisine to our vocabulary after his restaurant launched in 2003. I had some history with the Danish dining destination, having reviewed it twice as food critic for The Washington Post—in 2017 as a Mexican jungle pop-up in Tulum, and a year later after it relocated and transitioned to a strictly seasonal script, where I felt as if I were eating the future. 

(Memories were made from dishes including sea snail broth, robust with maitake oil and proffered in the snail’s shell, rimmed with minced pickles using foraged herbs. I left dinner with a new appreciation for ants, kelp, and sea cucumber, as well as Noma’s clever presentations. The reason their blue mussels shone so brightly? The staff polished them.) 

Unlike on those previous trips, I put in a request for a table for two in Los Angeles using my own name rather than a pseudonym. Still, I paid $1,500 per person, the most I’ve ever spent on a meal. 

As I boarded my flight for the West Coast, Julia Moskin of the New York Times broke the Redzepi story read ’round the world. Interviews with former employees revealed systemic workplace abuse by Redzepi that included tales of humiliation and cruelty, some of which he copped to before, and suddenly, he owned his mistakes further. At dinner on the day I landed, Moskin reported that he was stepping away from Noma. 

I knew I’d take heat for keeping my Friday lunch date, but I also knew plenty of people would be curious to know how the pop-up measured up. Frankly, the journalist in me felt compelled to share the experience. While I abhor the chef’s past behavior, and the details of abuse are horrific, now that he has distanced himself from the project, why punish his entire team? 

The remaining Noma players took to heart the entertainment mantra: The show must go on. So could I enjoy the show? 

Just 42 seats, the pop-up is staged within The Paramour Estate, a historic house with panorama East-Side views in the Silver Lake neighborhood. Arrivals ease in with poolside cups of restorative lemon leaf tea; citrus is one of what the cooks here refer to as their “Lego blocks” in designing a California-themed menu. By the kitchen entrance, a bursting, smiling chorus of welcomes greets us as the chefs leave their stations and stand at attention – startling for my Noma-newbie guest who thought it felt like a jump scare. I recognized it as tradition, a disarming display of Noma hospitality. 

“You know when you have people over? You don’t stay in the kitchen. You meet them at the door,” says Luke Feltz, Noma’s R&D sous chef and a veteran of the magical Minibar by Jose Andres in Washington. The message: “We want to cook for you, and take care of you.”

The kitchen wastes no time dazzling diners with pristine California ingredients, starting with Dungeness crab. We marvel first at the sight of claws and carapace poking out of a heaping bowl of pink peppercorns attached to their feathery leaves, then at the taste of the seafood, which is blanched, barbecued on an outdoor charcoal grill with a postcard view of the city, and glazed with more pink peppercorns. 

The sweet crab needs no embellishment, but just in case, a “fudge,” or dip of koji oil, sour orange, and peppercorns rides shotgun. More crab follows, hidden inside what the menu calls a “dumpling,” but what the eye registers as a daylily framed in tiny green buds. Holding the crisp steamed stem, we bite into the trumpet-shaped flower and catch crab, a sensation repeated with the buds, plumped with the crustacean’s cooking liquid. The elegant still life is arranged on a custom-made, house-shaped ceramic platter that launches a conversation about the attention Noma has always lavished on staging its food. 

Everything I ate and drank inspired me to up my presentation game at home. 

More Poseidon adventures follow. Lift the burnt-orange tail of a spiny lobster hovering over same-colored crushed desert rock to find a cup of clear, cool liquid sprung from lobster broth, dashi, and, this being Nordic cookery, elderflower oil. Like a chilled cloth on a hot day, the broth revives us. Next up is a spot prawn, showcased multiple ways on a seaweed canvas. The head is filled with an intense paste of smoked pumpkin, which we are instructed to suck. The succulent tail meat is painted green; turns out, matcha isn’t just for sipping. 

A little cup, thin as eggshell, gathers sea urchin from Santa Barbara, caviar glistening with anise-y Hoja Santa oil, and a surprise: I didn’t expect a braised acorn. The soft nut, glazed with black peppercorns, is a nod to California’s Indigenous peoples and a labor of love. (The acorns must be cracked, peeled, and scraped before they go into a pressure cooker. They emerge subtly sweet and earthy, with a suggestion of grain.) Beneath the star ingredients awaits a custard, infused with sea urchin and as silky as they come. The maritime flavors encourage me to scrape, scrape, scrape the bowl with my spoon. 

Noma’s fascination with California’s greens, whether yanked from the ground or beneath the sea, is hinted at early on and delightfully reinforced throughout the meal. More, please, of a garden of half a dozen different seaweeds in as many colors, a collection of textures and tastes that make me wonder why more restaurants aren’t promoting sea-grown grasses. Fresh, butter-kissed clams in the salad add a tender, subtly sweet note and balance the textures. 

If there’s one dish I could forgo it would be a riff on a taco fashioned from split cactus paddle and sandwiched with a suggestion of pomelo and herbs. “Better in rehearsal?” I thought to myself as I sampled the slimy composition, nestled in rocks. A sense of danger accompanies a cactus with more spikes than a porcupine. Jutting out of the center, though, is a handle of eucalyptus twig. Mine wasn’t fastened as securely as other diners’, so I carefully opened the cactus with my fingers, sticking myself in a few places. Servers hover, asking whether a first-aid kit should be rushed in. I am delighted to find a couple slices of brilliant green cactus, marinated in smoky mezcal and sparkling citrus, beneath the prickly packaging. Pleasure follows pain. 

I thought I had grown tired of tasting menus and sitting in dining rooms for hours: too many, too much, lots of words. At Noma, nothing ever feels rushed or slow. No dish is too small or too big. Noma is the high-priced star, the attention-demanding showboat that actually delivers—even at 17 courses. 

The setting helps. A former ballroom was redesigned to weave the best of Denmark and California. Inspired by Mother Nature, the minimalist, light-filled dining room, alive with plants and warm in wood and stone, suggests the outdoors. Not just on the plate, California ingredients are displayed in fetching collections. (You don’t eat the scenery, so they say. Noma proves an exception.) The murmurs from the crowd on this third day of service never intruded on conversation. I fact-checked that with a decibel app on my phone, which was given its own stool. 

Back to the food: Tuna gets 15 seconds of fame when a slice of the fish’s eye is presented in a slender, ruby-red banana flower atop glistening rocks of ice. The eye, set off with an “iris” of mandarin, is slippery like gelatin and mildly, pleasantly, fishy. We’re instructed to dispatch the delicacy in a single slurp from one of nature’s finest utensils. 

Another delight follows. Minced tuna neck shares an ivory steamed bun with see-through shards of faux chicken skin. The accent is coaxed from the surface film that forms on a pot of chicken stock, skimmed and dehydrated. My mouth imagines a heaven-sent communion wafer.

Dish No. 12 is poised for stardom. It’s just a few well-cast ingredients playing against a backdrop of fragrant avocado leaves: spoonfuls of steamed black pearl rice ringed in shimmering pistachio oil and framed in quarter-thick slices of macadamias. The look and taste are such a revelation that my dining companion and I have a jinx moment when we share our cloud thoughts. “Alice Waters!” we say simultaneously, evoking the Earth Mother of California cuisine. The rice swells with the flavor of the avocado leaves in which it’s cooked. The emerald oil is the bow on this gift. Phones emerge. This dish deserves its close-up. 

Intentionally, there are no well-known wines among the eight or so drink pairings that are included in the price and are expected to change during the scheduled four-month run. Sommelier Max Manning – one of about 130 colleagues and their family members who relocated for the pop-up – sought out selections from around California that conform to Noma’s focus on natural wines from small producers. The pours average three ounces, “but if you’re enjoying something, we offer a good spill more,” says Manning, whose theater background translates to a bravura performance in the dining room. The artisanal spirits — gin, amaro, aged blueberry schnapps — use ingredients foraged by Noma and get dispensed from bottles whose labels were created by Manning’s father, a designer. The restaurant’s mezcal, from a family in Oaxaca, flatters the menu’s more desert-y dishes. 

Chanterelles rank among my favorite mushrooms, so I am delighted to see slices of them arrive in the leathery folds of a turkey tail mushroom. Grilled and lit with habanero and yuzu, they fall short of wonderful due to a salt assault. Easy to fix. 

Noma’s cooks stay in the woods for the final savory course, a plate of pitch-perfect plants — baby agave shoots and young corn smut among others — circling a mole created from kelp and chiles, swabbed with pieces of the accompanying warm and supple corn tortillas. The fun continues with what appears to be a bouquet on the side. Surprise! It’s a flower of grilled artichoke attached to its sturdy stalk. We tip it upside down and use it as a brush to mop up the last of the sauce on our plates. 

The dishes have been portioned with the promise of multiple desserts in mind. Cherimoya and lemongrass show their affinity for each other in a bite of cactus-shaped ice cream rising from a pool of plum sake. Next is a small sunflower, sunny petals framing a nursery-licious custard made with macadamia milk and pistachios and escorted by bead-size heirloom Hong Kong kumquats, sourced from a few trees maintained for scientific purposes and fleetingly available (a mere four weeks or so), says Feltz, the R&D chef.

Diners work for the finale, a fortune cookie, hidden inside what looks like a little tree, bound at the top with string. We cut the string with tiny scissors, and voila! The branches open like an umbrella. Charming. 

Three hours later, diners rise and gather in small groups around the pool and garden outside as we wait for our chariots — an Uber in my case. In just 90 minutes, the Noma team will be back onstage. I watch a delivery of hundreds of hamburgers and frozen custard from a friend of Noma — “tonight’s staff meal,” jokes Jenny Löfgren, the restaurant’s communications manager. “The chefs in L.A. have been very welcoming.” 

For me, this Noma pop-up is impressive, perfect-adjacent. Given the steep price of admission, there’s no wiggle room for error or a dish that’s merely good. 

Back in Washington, I wonder: How does this feast compare with other world-acclaimed restaurants I’ve had the good fortune of sampling? 

Time, place, and memory shape my thumbs-up feelings. I once lived in California. My guest at this pop-up was a cherished friend. It seems I have always prioritized good food served by good chefs. As a collegiate waiter slinging pizza in Georgetown, I saved my tips for the well-reviewed restaurants by my legendary predecessor at The Post, Phyllis C. Richman. (Speaking of splurges, tickets for the Super Bowl go for thousands more than this dining spectacle.) 

I like the fact that the Noma staff get three days off in a row. Each night, at no charge, the restaurant reserves one table for young industry professionals who can apply to enjoy a meal at Noma L.A. 

No doubt, Redzepi’s downfall could overshadow the Noma-meets-L.A. experience. Just as I can no longer watch a Woody Allen movie with the same mindset as before certain allegations, I can’t unread the accusations former employees have made against Redzepi. But at the end of the day, I remain a reporter and critic, and the pop-up is news. 

Memorable cooking is but one reason to shell out serious dough for a meal. Did I learn something new? Did the hospitality raise any bar? Did I feel as though I had been transported somewhere wonderful from start to finish? Was it worth the added expense of a cross-country plane ride and hotel stay? 

Regarding the pop-up, is the staff in a better place? The benefits at Noma L.A. embrace day care and free housing, and, since 2022, everyone working at Noma is paid, interns included.

To finish answering the question of worth, let’s just say I don’t typically dream about glasses that practically float in your hands or servers who seem to know the answer to every ask you have about the experience (sometimes because they cooked the dishes themselves). After eating here, I want more acorns, Hong Kong kumquats, and small-batch California wine in my life. More solutions for improving the lives of restaurant workers, too.

The emperor’s clothes are in tatters, but his disciples deserve a standing ovation and rounds of applause.

Coming up next in Next Course: How to make home entertaining easy. A recipe for my favorite lamb burger. Where to eat in Montreal.