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• On the road with Rene Redzepi

The reservations site for Noma Sydney opened at 10am AEDT today. By 10.04 am, the online booking system was telling Australia and the world all the $485 a head seats were sold out.

That's 5600 seats across 10 weeks, gone in a flash (and potentially more than $2.7 million in instant takings as diners had to pay the full menu price at the time of booking).

A spokesperson for Noma Sydney confirmed the booking allocation for all tables was exhausted within four minutes.

The Danish restaurant, helmed by chef Rene Redzepi, has taken out the No.1 spot on the World's 50 Best Restaurants list four times. It is currently ranked No. 3. Redzepi is flying his entire Copenhagen team to Sydney to start their 10-week residency at Barangaroo on Australia Day, while Noma Copenhagen undergoes renovations.

Trying to score a table was like a frantic game of Minesweeper for four minutes: clicking on calendar dates at random, hoping there wouldn't be a big, red, "allocation exhausted" banner underneath each one.

Alas, for this writer, there was no luck. Although, there is an "Add Name to Waitlist" button on the bookings site if anyone who missed out wants to add their name and is feeling very, very lucky.