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People can't get enough of Noma's new burger

Taryn Varricchio,Nicole Raucheisen   

People can't get enough of Noma's new burger
LifeThelife3 min read
  • Famed Copenhagen restaurant Noma reopened as a burger and wine bar in May.
  • With no reservation required to visit the pop-up, which ends on June 21, customers have come by and waited up to three hours to have their meal.
  • The burger bar offers two burgers on its menu: meat or veggie.
  • The cheeseburger is called The Viking, made with ground flank steak and beef garum.

Following is a full transcript of this video.

Narrator: This cheeseburger looks simple, but hundreds of people have waited up to three hours to get one. That's because it's served at Copenhagen's famed Noma.

Ringisai Campbell: Here in Denmark, everybody knows that Noma's one of the best restaurants in the world.

Narrator: Like many restaurants, Noma shut its doors for a few months and reopened in May in an entirely new way.

Caroline Werenberg: When I heard that they were reopening as a burger bar, it was very unexpected. I think a lot of us have the association with Noma that it's very fine-dining experience. It's very closed off from the rest of Copenhagen, in a way.

Narrator: Customers like Caroline waited in line to order burgers to go or to eat in a picnic area outside the restaurant.

René Redzepi: We sold 1,300 burgers in about four hours. It was amazing. We may have had 1,000 people line up at first.

Ringisai: Yeah, it was almost like "Star Wars," when "Star Wars" movies came out and then if you hadn't gone that was not OK.

Narrator: There's just two burgers on the new menu, one meat and one veggie. The Noma cheeseburger is called the Viking. It's made with dry-aged flank steak and seasoned with beef garum, which is a fermented beef glaze made form a mix of beef, salt, water, barley, and koji. Executive chef René Redzepi and his team blend in beef kidney fat to give the meat an even beefier flavor. Chefs slap the ground meat between their hands to mold each patty into a round shape. Then it's cooked with butter and topped with organic cheddar cheese, red onion, and a burger sauce that's made with mayo, ketchup, and pickles. The veggie burger is made with quinoa and tempeh and glazed with a mix of fermentation liquids.

Narrator: Typically, Noma is this exclusive, expensive place famous for inventive dishes like potted-plant desserts and juicy celeriac shawarma. The meal can cost around $500, while just getting a reservation can take months. And many customers expected much of the same when Noma reopened.

Caroline: I sort of expected it to be a bit more experimental. We were a bit hesitant, but actually somehow it was just the perfect burger.

Narrator: Caroline ordered the Viking, which costs 150 Danish krone, or about $23. To take the cheeseburger to go, it costs 125 Danish krone, or roughly $19. Others came to taste wine and beer and drink beside the water

Employee: French wine bar style with the prices on it and everything like that. And we selected some bottles that we, you know, don't always have on the wine list, just because they're rare or just because we only have five or six bottles of it.

Narrator: According to Noma's Instagram, the burger bar will be open through June 21.

René: You know, we're doing everything here we can to make people happy and also to make sure that everybody stays safe, and nobody really knew what the hell was gonna happen. Now, it's shifting. And it's a really, really amazing thing to experience.

Ringisai: I definitely would go again. And I told all my friends, literally the second after, I said, "Guys, you have to go now."

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