Back in January, I told you how I’d tried and failed to get a dinner reservation at Noma—currently rated the #1 restaurant in the world—for a celebration of this year’s milestone birthday, and then how I inexplicably succeeded. Now that I’m home from my trip to Copenhagen, it’s time to fill you in on how the night went.

Short version:

It was amazing.

Longer version:

First off, there didn’t seem to be anyone in the city who wasn’t aware of both Noma’s culinary reputation and the difficulty of getting in. Whenever I’d mention how I was going to spend (or had just spent) my birthday, eyes would go wide, and whatever was said in response could easily be boiled down to “Whoa.” People took pride in the way Chef Rene Redzepi and his introduction of new Nordic cuisine had made the rest of the world take notice of their country.

Our reservation was on March 31 for 7:30 p.m., and when we arrived a few minutes before then, an employee opened the front door and we were greeted before we were even out of the taxi. And when we stepped through that front door, I was stunned to see there were several dozen members of the staff assembled to greet me, with Redzepi front and center, reaching out to shake my hand and wish me a happy birthday. It was totally unexpected, because, well, didn’t these people have food to cook and other customers to serve? But even so, they somehow found the time to circle us and make us feel welcome.

I once more asked Redzepi—why am I even here? How is it that in the midst of his Tokyo pop-up, he would pick me, out of the thousands of hopefuls wishing to dine at Noma, to get one of the rare tables for two? He had no specific reason for having made a dream come true, other than that every once in a while, he’ll notice such a request, and try to help out if he can. I expressed my gratitude again (after all, they do get 20,000 reservation requests per month), and we continued chatting en masse, answering their questions about our time in Copenhagen so far, and what we’d planned for the rest of the trip. After what seemed like at least 10 minutes (but surely it couldn’t have been, right, not with other customers already seated and needing attention?), we were led to our table, and dinner began.

We didn’t end up leaving until nearly four hours later. (more…)

There’s an easy way to tell whether you’re my kind of foodie, and that’s if upon taking a look at this photo from Edible Selby‘s gallery of the Copenhagen restaurant Noma …

… you don’t think “I’ll pass” or “that’s weird” or “what the heck is that,” but instead, your first thought is —

I want that in my mouth RIGHT NOW!

Because that was my immediate, visceral reaction.

There are other ways to know whether we’re on the same culinary wavelength … but that’s a good start.

I told you earlier this month how I’d tried—and failed—to get a reservation at Noma to celebrate my milestone birthday later this year. Chef Rene Redzepi’s Copenhagen restaurant is currently considered the best in the world, and has been ranked as such four of the past five years. Noma’s home location is temporarily closed right now, and operating as a pop-up in Japan, where it reportedly has a waiting list of 60,000 people.

But last night, in a stunning surprise that I still can’t quite believe … I got my reservation!

Why is that so stunning?

Consider that a columnist for The Guardian once wrote: “The chances of getting a table at noma these days are about as likely as getting invited to the Queen’s Palace for dinner … ”

And that getting in is so difficult, the story of a woman who had a reservation and was looking for a date went viral.

So, yes. That I could get a table was astounding. How I was able to get that table is even more astounding, considering I let my dream of a milestone birthday dinner there go after my January 12th failure.

So I was stunned Wednesday night when—after I shared a recent review of the Japanese pop-up on Twitter to explain to my followers why I’d so wanted that birthday dinner—

—Chef Redzepi reached out to me personally and asked when my birthday was! (more…)

So late last night—or early this morning, depending on how you keep track of these things—I attempted to book a table at Noma. With a milestone birthday coming in March, I figured, what better place to celebrate then at the Copenhagen restaurant that’s currently considered the best restaurant in the world? And since you might want to eat there someday, I thought I should share how it all went down.

Reservations for the date in question began at 10:00 a.m. Central European Time, which translates to 4:00 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, so I set an alarm for 3:45 a.m.—two alarms, actually, because I activated a Fitbit silent one to vibrate on my wrist in case the main alarm failed—and slept for a few hours before waking, stumbling downstairs, and being confronted by this pre-booking countdown screen.

I had no idea how many others around the globe were staring at something similar, but found out, once 10:00 a.m. Central European Time rolled around, that there were at least 1,449 of them—because I was number 1,450, with an estimated wait time of more than an hour. And there were equally as many behind me in the queue, because when I decided to try logging in using my iPhone, I was assigned a number greater than 3,000. (more…)