The Danish restaurant Noma, an emblem of Nordic cuisine and

chosen five times as the best restaurant in the world, announced this Monday

that it will close its doors at the end of 2024 to become a gastronomic laboratory.

The renowned establishment, renamed Noma 3.0,

will be dedicated to "food innovation" and the development of "new flavors"

, without ruling out "specific" openings in different places, including Copenhagen, according to a statement released on its website.

"Serving diners will continue to be a part of who we are, but

being a restaurant will no longer define us

. Instead, we will spend much of our time exploring new projects and developing many more ideas and products," the chef and ideologue said in the letter. , René Redzepi.

Redzepi advanced the news to the

New York Times

, alluding to fatigue from the hectic pace of life and the pressure, and later explained in statements to the Danish newspaper

Berlingske

that he

made the decision at the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

"Especially during the first confinement, I really calmed down to think and look forward.

What I saw was that it was going to be very difficult to continue as we do now in Noma for ten more years without a company buying us with a lot of money

that could help in what we do," he told the Berlingske website.

And he decided that, to increase the focus on creativity and reduce it on production, it would be best to look for another economic foundation,

Noma Projects, a portal for the sale of fermented gastronomic products devised by his team

, which launched last year with a sauce based on fermented mushrooms and then smoked.

René Redzepi, second from the left.

Redzepi revealed that Noma's transformation process will take "between two and four years."

"In what way Noma will open again I don't know yet. But I doubt it will do it as a common restaurant, which is always open and in which you can reserve a table.

It will be something more sporadic and of a pop up type

, "said the Danish chef .

Rezdepi talks about opening a station a year in Copenhagen or elsewhere, but he doesn't want to commit to anything and hints that he will only open "once every two years" anyway.

Noma, which also has three Michelin stars,

had already closed after 13 years at the end of 2016, to reappear in 2018

in a renovated premises in an area close to the Danish capital, with an urban garden and several different menus, depending on the station.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more