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…)