Noma, actually. ln this hour of CNN’s Parts Unknown, Anthony Bourdain found himself a duck out of water in “the world’s happiest country,” all the while exchanging soclal and culinary pointers with world-renowned chef and Noma co-founder René Redzepi. Be happy!
The secret to happiness, Bertrand Russell once observed, is to face the fact that the world is horrible. Imagine Anthony Bourdain’s surprise, then, when he found himself — somewhat reluctantly — in the “happiest country on Earth” and quite enjoying himself. Inconceivable!
Of course, truth be told — an expression Bourdain would never have used himself, being given to speaking his truth as he saw it and telling like it is — it wasn’t Denmark that enchanted him so, or even the city of Copenhagen (pop. 660,000, established as a Viking fishing village in the 10th century), so much as the three-Michelin-star restaurant Noma and its indefatigable head chef and co-founder René Redzepi.
Noma is an abbreviation of the Danish words “nordisk” (Nordic, as in Nordic noir and high-end murder mysteries like Forbrydelsen) and “mad,” the Danish word for food, though the English root word “mad” works too, as Bourdain was mad happy about his days spent at Noma.
The Parts Unknown episode Copenhagen aired on CNN in October 2013 and there’s something winsome, nostalgic even, about watching it today. Copenhagen — even though remember, it’s not that much about Copenhagen — is consistently ranked by viewers as one of Parts Unknown’s 10 most popular episodes, according to the aggregate site IMDB, and it’s easy to see why. Following a run of gritty, rough-hewn outings like Jerusalem and, to a lesser extent, Spain and New Mexico, Copenhagen focused on finding happiness within one’s self, through good food and fine dining. Inconceivable!
Bourdain smiles ruefully and jokes a lot throughout the episode, as if affronted by the idea that anyone can be truly happy, let alone in a society that focuses on individual sacrifice for the greater good — 60% income tax! free college tuition for everyone! free health care! social security for life! — why, it all sounds … almost socialist. Bourdain can barely contain his horror. Why, it’s, it’s … un-American.
Denmark has its social problems, true — Forbrydelsen, aka The Killing, created by the Danish author Søren Sveistrup and produced by German public service broadcaster ZDF, told the story of a murdered 16-year-old girl with gritty, unflinching realism and went on to win the BAFTA Award and International Emmy Award as the world’s best television drama; think The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo but set in the world’s happiest country, where dark undercurrents flow beneath the seemingly cheery, jovial surface.
Between serene canal sailings and reluctantly riding the historical children’s Ferris wheel alongside Redzepi at Tivoli Gardens, though (“Children were skared!” one inscription screams in the visitors’ book), Bourdain finds a small measure of happiness, and it’s poignant watching that today, knowing how this tale ended.
“After this, we’re going to steal a car, and I’m going to teach you to drive,” Bourdain tells the famously law-abiding, lifelong nondriver Redzepi.
Inconceivable!
What one might not have guessed, based on simply watching Copenhagen all the way through, is how difficult it was to film, according to Bourdain in his field notes, published on CNN’s website at the time.
Bourdain gave props to his long-suffering colleague and field producer Tom Vitale for, well, being “heroically suicidal” in the risks he took with this episode.
“We would provide no coverage for our editor back in New York,” Bourdain explained, “no extra footage of entrances and exits, establishing shots, alternate takes. Subjects would fall and wander out of frame. We would force post-production to be great because there would be simply no alternative.
“We would tell our entire story over the course of one meal, at one restaurant, cutting back and forth through time and space.” Inconceivable!
Bourdain samples reindeer moss at Noma (locally foraged and in-season, two of Redzepi/Noma’s tell-tale signature calling cards); fjord shrimp and smoked eel at Restaurant Grøften; shares shots of Gammel Dansk, Danish multi-herb bitters, with sailor/accordion player/boat operator and qualified, card-carrying drinker at Funchs Vinstrue, a centuries-old Copenhagen pub; and, by the end, a late-night tube steak at John’s Hot Dog Deli, a sidewalk stand famous for “The Deluxe,” an “organic sausage” (one can almost picture Bourdain sniffing, ‘Oh, please, organic sausage? Really?’) garnished with wild garlic, beer-pickled onions (“These are good!”) and house-made mustard.
“Noma for lunch, John’s for dinner,” Bourdain says.
Noma is famous for sourcing most, if not all, of their ingredients from forests, fields, farms, beaches, and marshes within 60 miles of Copenhagen’s city centre.
Bourdain: “They have pioneered the notion of foraging and (have) taken it to an extreme that would be damn easy to mock if the results weren’t so genuinely brilliant and delicious.”
If you’re considering booking a reservation, please note: Noma is slated to end its days as a full-time restaurant at the end of the year. Part of the reason is a lingering post-Covid malaise and hangover — fine dining is becoming increasingly unsustainable, especially in this economy — but part of it, too, is Redzepi’s plan to widen his horizons. Noma will become a full-time lab and test kitchen, Noma 3.0, for online ordering. Noma will also open on occasion as a series of pop-up restaurants
“To continue being Noma, we must change,” the restaurant revealed on its website late last year. “Winter 2024 will be the last season of Noma as we know it.”
And so, post-Bourdain, Noma is about to become the latest player in the fast-growing world of direct-to-consumer e-commerce platforms like Wild Rose Vinegar and Smoked Mushroom Garum. Fine dining is going online, it would seem, where it hasn’t done so already. So much for hygge after all.
By the end of Copenhagen, it’s clear Bourdain was enchanted, if not smitten. Only a couple of days before his visit, he wasn’t so sure, as he reveals at the hour’s outset.
“I do not, by temperament or inclination, gravitate towards Scandinavian countries. I am intimidated and made uncomfortable by safe, clean, orderly places where everything works and people seem creepily content. I’m a guy who tends to fall in love with hot, messy, barely functional places” — hello, Congo! hello, Libya! — “where fiery arguments are common, and one is pleasantly surprised if one’s luggage arrives in good order, if at all.
“So, it comes as something of a surprise that what we came back with after shooting in Copenhagen is perhaps the finest, most technically accomplished, best-looking hour of television we’ve ever made. It’s just (expletive) … gorgeous.”
Inconceivable! (apologies to William Goldman and Vizzini/Wallace Shawn in The Princess Bride.)
Next up: Sicily.
Spoiler alert — Bourdain would later describe Sicily as his worst travel experience.
You’ve been warned.
CNN