Here's What Anthony Bourdain Ate At Noma, The Best Restaurant In The World

Bourdain traveled to Copenhagen, Denmark, where Noma is located.

His sole purpose was to go to Noma and meet executive chef René Redzepi.

Diners wait for months to eat at this 45-seat restaurant. It's famous for its creativity and its emphasis on local and foraged ingredients.

Today, Noma is acclaimed as the best restaurant in the world, but not everyone was so accepting of Noma at first. Redzepi, who was born in Yugoslavia, explains that in Denmark, “It’s hard to really make an effort. If you stand out too much, get off your horse.”

Noma is known for experimenting with local, plant-based food. Here is a type of coconut dish.

With a side of flowers.

Here is a marinated soro-soro leaf dipped in "green snow." Bourdain quipped, "I’ve never tasted a green vegetable that good.”

All of the vegetable dishes, like this asparagus roasted with pine, tender spruce shoots, and green asparagus sauce, are made with local ingredients.

Redzepi will even serve insects. This dish is grilled onions, fermented pears, and salt made out of wood ants. One chef explains about eating the bugs, “It’s like zing, its like excitement in your mouth — a party everyone’s invited.”

Redzepi takes Bourdain to forage for fresh ingredients along the coast.

He points out the chive flowers in the field.

He also finds some leeks which they pick and take back to the restaurant.

Later, Redzepi cooks the leeks and serves them to Bourdain, who says they're the "meatiest, most umami filled vegetable I’ve ever had."

They also eat grilled pike heads with beach herbs, which they found while foraging.

Redzepi then takes Bourdain to the farm where he gets most of his meat and vegetables. He explains that it's important for chefs to keep the symbiosis with those who grow the food.

At the farm, Bourdain and Redzepi make a four course meal in about ten minutes.

It includes fresh veal tartare, wild onions, horseradish, chives, salted leeks, cheese, and a flowered vinaigrette over the asparagus.

Noma is known for its incredibly inventive dishes. Redzepi encourages the staff to come up with creative concoctions: Every Saturday night, Noma's chefs offer new recipes for the staff to sample and critique.

One of these experimental dishes that received plenty of praise was mushroom ice cream with fermented barley sauce.

One of the innovative dishes on the actual menu is quail egg cooked in hay, which Bourdain calls "perfect."

And a fish skewered through a ball of pickled cucumber.

Here's a broth of wild lobster claws and nasturtium petals.

And a "luxurious" lobster tail underneath tiny leaves.

Only in Noma would this be a bread dish. It's a flat bread with shoots of spruce and oak tree.

Redzepi puts a twist on the traditional Danish flavors of potatoes and sauces. These are potatoes cooked in fermented barley.

And Noma even has a food lab where Redzepi tests and experiments with fermented, aged, and dried food.

There are some pretty adventurous ingredients in the food lab, like these 5-year-old wild roses.

And bee larva.

This experimentation and creativity results in incredible, memorable, and delicious dishes, like this dessert of pork skin covered in chocolate with freeze-dried blackberries. It's easy to see why Noma won the prestigious title of World's Best Restaurant.

Can't get enough of the world's best restaurant?

What It's Like To Eat At Noma, The Best Restaurant In The World >