Anita Clark gets into Noma, discovers it’s worth the hype, every cent

ANITA Clark was one of the lucky few to sample Noma Sydney’s delights. She reveals what you get for $1000 and the one dish that fell flat.

For serious foodies, Noma — the world’s best restaurant — is the pinnacle of gastronomy so it wasn’t surprising tickets to the Sydney pop up restaurant at Barangaroo sold out in four minutes flat.

Only 5500 lucky diners will get to experience the mastery of 2-star Michelin chef Rene Redzepi over the next 10 weeks.

I was one of the 28,000 disappointed diners who was waitlisted but fortune suddenly smiled — a last minute cancellation (who cancels Noma?) casting me entry to this exclusive club.

With my lunch partner Karen (a serious foodie), we entered the restaurant and found the entire kitchen staff lined up ready to greet us, including the down to earth and smiling Redzepi.

The room is very Nordic — beautiful timber, minimal clean lines and only 15 tables. The excitement was palpable as we all waited to see how this master chef would tantalise our tastebuds.

One of Redzepi’s finely crafted dishes at Noma.

Redzepi is genius at reinventing cuisine with a focus on foraging. In preparation he made at least 12 trips to outback Australia meeting indigenous people and trying the untried. Our first course is unripe macadamia and spanner crab broth.

It’s presented beautifully in a clay bowl on a bed of crushed ice and tastes delicious — the nuts taste crisp and clean and the subtlety of spanner crab in the broth is enticing.

Next course was wild season berries with plum dust and a seaweed oil. It’s different — really tangy and the seaweed oil tastes a bit like a cross between pesto and wheatgrass.

Every course is different from the citrusy berries, from the sweet tomatoes and sea urchin which is served like smooth sorbet, to the abalone schnitzel with bush condiments including a palm nut, bunyip nut, mudrush, a herb bouquet and Ryan’s necklace.

The restaurant runs like a well coiled wheel. Finish one course and the next is not too far away.

At Noma, the experience of dining is paramount.

Chefs bring your meal out with a detailed explanation of the dish they have crafted; the wait staff guide you expertly through each course but there is no pomp or ceremony, rather it’s as if you are like part of a big family. Except there is an odd rule, one we found quite endearing.

When Karen excuses herself for a bathroom visit, our waiter firmly declares: “You can’t. The next course is about to be delivered”.

At Noma, pie comes with lantana flowers.

She immediately sits down. The same thing happens when I try to leave the table two courses later. So we devise a cunning plan to leave a morsel on our plates so we can slip away without interrupting the flow, so to speak.

The seafood platter and crocodile fat is a cause for contention. We apprehensively nibble the crocodile fat shards. I find it weird and the after taste is indescribable. I don’t mind it. Karen thinks differently

“When they asked do you have any dietary requirements, I should have said, an aversion to crocodile fat,” she jokes.

The seafood is heavenly, sweet, perfectly cooked or left in their natural state: clam, oyster, pipi, mussels all served in their shells.

The crocodile fat comes from the same farm in North Queensland where Louis Vuitton sources the skin for their $50,000 handbags.

As I finish the course I notice my fingers are oily from picking up the crocodile fat shards, but the oil is soft and blends into my fingers. Has Redzepi stumbled across something — crocodile fat moisturiser?

Noma recipe signed by the head chef.

The standout dish for Karen is the Western Australian deep sea snow crab and cured egg yolk fermented in kangaroo juice and burnt butter.

Light and fluffy and tastes really luscious. For me it’s the marron and magpie goose course served in a milk skin, a cross between a pancake and an omelet but is described as a dumpling, it’s stuffed with the rich, juicy marron, which melts in the mouth.

I can’t taste the magpie goose. Having never tasted it before I haven’t a clue what I’m missing.

Redzepi’s take on arguably Australia’s national dish, the pie with dried scallops and lantana flowers.

The presentation is pretty — the lantana has a beautiful scent and we are directed to remove the petals before scattering them over the pie. The stalk, which is poisonous, is left aside!

The dried scallops sit on a seaweed base and taste bitter but I still finish it all.

The 12 courses are delivered smoothly and with perfect tempo.

Watermelon marinated in Davison plum (I love watermelon at the best of times but marinated in Davison plum is out of this world); mango with green ants from Darwin — the ants give a further tang to the mango. Never did I imagine reviewing a dish featuring mouth-watering ants?

Wattle seed and salt brush with finger limes. Picture: Instagram @yu4na

I’m not a dessert person but the rum lamington with rose root oil, milk crumb is as far away from a standard Aussie lamington as you can get and it’s just as yummy as a lamington — if not yummier and the final course is the peanut milk and freekeh “Baytime” — a play on the iconic Aussie treat — the Gaytime ice cream. A perfect way to finish the experience.

Is dining at Noma worth the expense? Our lunch date cost just over $1000 including the wine ordered — which was incidentally recommended by our waiter — is he a sommelier?

It’s almost the cost of a return flight to Copenhagen so was it worth it? Yes, every cent.

From the moment you step into Noma Sydney, you are taken on a culinary journey like no other. There are twists and turns and as the end nears you realise this fancy bush tucker has in fact turned a conventional dining experience upside down.

Anita Clark is a journalist at SBS. She interviewed Rene Redzepi last week. You can watch the interview here.

Originally published as Anita Clark gets into Noma, discovers it’s worth the hype, every cent