{"id":17788,"date":"2015-01-12T11:00:27","date_gmt":"2015-01-12T16:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/?p=17788"},"modified":"2015-01-12T11:00:27","modified_gmt":"2015-01-12T16:00:27","slug":"how-i-tried-to-celebrate-my-birthday-at-the-1-restaurant-in-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/2015\/01\/12\/how-i-tried-to-celebrate-my-birthday-at-the-1-restaurant-in-the-world\/","title":{"rendered":"How I tried to celebrate my birthday at the #1 restaurant in the world"},"content":{"rendered":"

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<\/a>. 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<\/a>? And since you might want to eat there someday, I thought I should share how it all went down.<\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

\"NomaPreQueue\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\"NomaQueue1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And then the wait began.<\/p>\n

Half an hour in, and I was number 942 in the queue.<\/p>\n

\"NomaQueue2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

But I did far more in the middle of the night than merely watch the numbers dwindle. I also bantered, thanks to the results of a search of “Noma” on Twitter, with others who were on the same hunt, though none of them seemed to be searching to match a specific birthday. We encouraged each other as our turns grew closer and the tension mounted.<\/p>\n

But I also spotted a few who bailed out upon seeing the number of people ahead of them, such as this person, whose identity I’ve masked.<\/p>\n

\"NomaTweet\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I hoped there would be many more like that, Out of my way!<\/p>\n

An hour in, and I was number 482 in the queue …<\/p>\n

\"NomaQueue3\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It looked as if I’d have around another half an hour to wait, which I filled with additional bantering, drooling over the menu Noma is currently serving during its Tokyo pop-up<\/a>, and watching Chef Ren\u00e9 Redzepi tell the story of his restaurant.<\/p>\n