Noma, One of the World’s Top-Rated Restaurants, Is Closing Its Doors

Noma, the Danish restaurant considered one of the best in the world, said Monday that it would close its doors next year and reopen as a test kitchen.

“To continue being noma, we must change,” Noma’s owner René Redzepi said on the restaurant’s website, without elaborating why the restaurant was closing to regular service in the winter of 2024.

Restaurants have struggled during the pandemic to cope with mounting food costs and diners staying home. Fine-dining establishments in particular have had trouble hawking expensive menus to patrons. At Noma, a meal currently costs at least $500 a person.

Mr. Redzepi said that starting in 2025, Noma would become a test kitchen and would sell products online. He said Noma would also have pop-ups around the world.

“Serving guests will always be a part of who we are, but being a restaurant will no longer define us,” he said.

He said on Instagram Monday that he and his team had planned the move for the last two years.

“It’s scary and weird but I also know it’s the right thing to do,” he said. “As soon as the pandemic hit I had this feeling in me that it was time for something different.”

He said he was on a plane bound for Kyoto, Japan, where Noma was set to open a pop-up restaurant for two months.

A representative for the restaurant said Mr. Redzepi wasn’t available for comment.

Mr. Redzepi opened Noma in Copenhagen in 2003 and eventually became the crown jewel in a booming food scene. He introduced Nordic food to new audiences and foraged through Danish shorelines and forests for ingredients like herbs and roots. As word spread about Noma’s experimental dishes, it became almost impossible to get a reservation.

After Noma was first named the world’s best restaurant in 2010 on Restaurant magazine’s influential list, it received about 100,000 reservation requests a month for its 40-seat dining space. It was named the world’s best restaurant again four more times. The restaurant has three Michelin stars.

Noma led Copenhagen’s reinvention as a fine-dining destination, drawing talented chefs and real-estate developers to Denmark’s capital. It also attracts diners who make pilgrimages from all around the world to try its multi-course menus. Noma has served dishes including pork neck with bulrushes and violets and king crab with leeks rolled in ashes.

Noma used to be based in an old warehouse on Copenhagen’s docks before closing in 2016 and reopening at a new location two years later.

Mr. Redzepi said in a 2015 blog post that he had been a bully and a terrible boss at times because he was under pressure. He said he would yell at employees over messing up dishes for journalists or overcooking fish. He said as a result that he had changed Noma’s culture to boost staff morale.

As European hot spots become overcrowded , travellers are digging deeper to find those less-populated but still brag-worthy locations. Greenland, moving up the list, is bracing for its new popularity.

Aria Varasteh has been to 69 countries, including almost all of Europe. He now wants to visit more remote places and avoid spots swarmed by tourists—starting with Greenland.

“I want a taste of something different,” said the 34-year-old founder of a consulting firm serving clients in the Washington, D.C., area.

He originally planned to go to Nuuk, the island’s capital, this fall via out-of-the-way connections, given there wasn’t a nonstop flight from the U.S. But this month United Airlines announced a nonstop, four-hour flight from Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey to Nuuk. The route, beginning next summer, is a first for a U.S. airline, according to Greenland tourism officials.

It marks a significant milestone in the territory’s push for more international visitors. Airlines ran flights with a combined 55,000 seats to Greenland from April to August of this year, says Jens Lauridsen, chief executive officer of Greenland Airports. That figure will nearly double next year in the same period, he says, to about 105,000 seats.

The possible coming surge of travellers also presents a challenge for a vast island of 56,000 people as nearby destinations from Iceland to Spain grapple with the consequences of over tourism.

Greenlandic officials say they have watched closely and made deliberate efforts to slowly scale up their plans for visitors. An investment north of $700 million will yield three new airports, the first of which will open next month in Nuuk.

“It’s the rumbling before the herd is coming,” says Mads Mitchell, general manager of Hotel Nordbo, a 67-room property in Nuuk. The owner of his property is considering adding 50 more rooms to meet demand in the coming years.

Mitchell has recently met with travel agents from Brooklyn, N.Y., South Korea and China. He says he welcomes new tourists, but fears tourism will grow too quickly.

“Like in Barcelona, you get tired of tourists, because it’s too much and it pushes out the locals, that is my concern,” he says. “So it’s finding this balance of like showing the love for Greenland and showing the amazing possibilities, but not getting too much too fast.”

Greenland’s buildup

Greenland is an autonomous territory of Denmark more than three times the size of Texas. Tourists travel by boat or small aircraft when venturing to different regions—virtually no roads connect towns or settlements.

Greenland decided to invest in airport infrastructure in 2018 as part of an effort to expand tourism and its role in the economy, which is largely dependent on fishing and subsidies from Denmark. In the coming years, airports in Ilulissat and Qaqortoq, areas known for their scenic fjords, will open.

One narrow-body flight, like what United plans, will generate $200,000 in spending, including hotels, tours and other purchases, Lauridsen says. He calls it a “very significant economic impact.”

In 2023, foreign tourism brought a total of over $270 million to Greenland’s economy, according to Visit Greenland, the tourism and marketing arm owned by the government. Expedition cruises visit the territory, as well as adventure tours.

United will fly twice weekly to Nuuk on its 737 MAX 8, which will seat 166 passengers, starting in June .

“We look for new destinations, we look for hot destinations and destinations, most importantly, we can make money in,” Andrew Nocella , United’s chief commercial officer, said in the company’s earnings call earlier in October.

On the runway

Greenland has looked to nearby Iceland to learn from its experiences with tourism, says Air Greenland Group CEO Jacob Nitter Sørensen. Tiny Iceland still has about seven times the population of its western neighbour.

Nuuk’s new airport will become the new trans-Atlantic hub for Air Greenland, the national carrier. It flies to 14 airports and 46 heliports across the territory.

“Of course, there are discussions about avoiding mass tourism. But right now, I think there is a natural limit in terms of the receiving capacity,” Nitter says.

Air Greenland doesn’t fly nonstop from the U.S. because there isn’t currently enough space to accommodate all travellers in hotels, Nitter says. Air Greenland is building a new hotel in Ilulissat to increase capacity when the airport opens.

Nuuk has just over 550 hotel rooms, according to government documents. A tourism analysis published by Visit Greenland predicts there could be a shortage in rooms beginning in 2027. Most U.S. visitors will stay four to 10 nights, according to traveler sentiment data from Visit Greenland.

As travel picks up, visitors should expect more changes. Officials expect to pass new legislation that would further regulate tourism in time for the 2025 season. Rules on zoning would give local communities the power to limit tourism when needed, says Naaja H. Nathanielsen, minister for business, trade, raw materials, justice and gender equality.

Areas in a so-called red zone would ban tour operators. In northern Greenland, traditional hunting takes place at certain times of year and requires silence, which doesn’t work with cruise ships coming in, Nathanielsen says.

Part of the proposal would require tour operators to be locally based to ensure they pay taxes in Greenland and so that tourists receive local knowledge of the culture. Nathanielsen also plans to introduce a proposal to govern cruise tourism to ensure more travelers stay and eat locally, rather than just walk around for a few hours and grab a cup of coffee, she says.

Public sentiment has remained in favour of tourism as visitor arrivals have increased, Nathanielsen says.

—Roshan Fernandez contributed to this article.

Noma, One of the World’s Top-Rated Restaurants, Is Closing Its Doors

Owner of the Danish restaurant said it would shut its doors to regular service in winter of 2024 but would later reopen as a test kitchen

The remote northern island wants more visitors: ‘It’s the rumbling before the herd is coming,’ one hotel manager says

Greenland’s buildup

On the runway