Last year, while still only halfway through the extensive planning process, Noma chef Rene Redzepi sat down with The Japan Times in the extensive test kitchen above his Copenhagen waterfront restaurant and outlined his reasons and vision for Noma in Japan.
You're closing your Copenhagen restaurant for three months to come to Japan. Why are you doing all this?
It started basically like this: I wanted to visit Japan more, I want to stage (intern in restaurants) a bit. But it was getting impossible because of children and my responsibilities here at the restaurant. So I thought, "OK, let's just all go and have a life experience." That's the basis of it. That's the motivation.