René Redzepi is no stranger to adapting to the seasons, as the Danish chef has dazzled the food world for more than two decades with his ever-changing menu of delectable dishes rooted in wild, locally sourced, and foraged ingredients. However, winter is coming for his famed restaurant, Noma, in Copenhagen, which has been named the best restaurant in the world by Restaurant magazine five times, earned three Michelin stars, and has won a host of other accolades since it opened in 2003.
As a fine-dining restaurant, Noma will close its doors this winter, with plans to reopen in 2025 as a food lab that will occasionally serve as a pop-up restaurant “when we have a body of work that needs to be tested,” Redzepi told the Globe in a recent Zoom interview. Noma 3.0 will instead be a testing ground for the decorated chef, who hopes to transform the space into a “thriving entity” that’s “world leading, dabbling in the power of deliciousness and flavor,” with a focus on making a “positive change in food.”
“I always felt, even in the early days of Noma, it had to be more than accolades, the work,” said Redzepi. “With each passing year, you learn more about seasonality and trees and snails and all sorts of things that grow and you eat. You just want to be part of it.”
He added, “I deeply believe that food is the most important thing we have on Earth and that we should value it more.”
While Noma has been a pioneer in turning seasonal, local, and foraged ingredients into fine-dining fare, Redzepi has been hard at work on a feast for the eyes with his new food and travel series, “Omnivore,” which premieres July 19 on Apple TV+. Redzepi teamed up with Emmy Award-winning executive producer Matt Goulding of “Anthony Bourdain: Explore Parts Unknown” for “Omnivore,” with the Noma founder serving as the show’s host. “True Detective” director and executive producer Cary Joji Fukunaga also helped develop the series.
“Omnivore” takes viewers on a journey through history and across the globe, highlighting how ingredients like salt, coffee, and chili peppers became staples for eaters around the world, forever changing our palates, our economies, and our cultures. Each episode spotlights a single ingredient and takes a “concept album” approach, with “its own rhythm, its own cadence,” according to Goulding, but tying “back to a larger whole.” The show also explores how decisions by individuals and governments around food can have far-reaching and long-lasting impacts.
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“The power of the concept is that you can tell incredible stories about anything that we eat,” Goulding said. “Those decisions that we make are the ones that have shaped the world that we live in.”
In addition to drawing inspiration from David Attenborough’s “Planet Earth” series, Redzepi and Goulding channeled the lessons they learned from their late friend Bourdain while making “Omnivore.” Redzepi noted that they were inspired by Bourdain’s “fearlessness, rawness, honesty,” and by his respect for food and different cultures.
“I think ‘Omnivore’ can’t exist without Bourdain coming before and opening up that world and really kind of broadening our horizons to the powers of food, especially in the Western world,” Goulding said. “I think when René and I set out to do this, we thought, ‘What’s the next step?’”
While “Omnivore” is a celebration of food and meant to inspire rather than teach, according to Redzepi, it also takes a closer look at the inner workings of the global food chain and some of the negative outcomes that can occur from our daily decision over what we eat.
Redzepi explains that while he has “absolutely nothing against big industry,” he does take issue when attempts to modernize food production lead to “its own set of problems,” like when farmers focus on growing only one type of crop to the detriment of others and the surrounding environment.
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The Noma chef believes that there needs to be a balance between optimizing our industries to meet today’s needs with the traditions and “ancient knowledge” around food that different cultures have passed down throughout generations.
“We need the best of both worlds, in my opinion, to actually produce a system where we don’t just lose ourselves in a constant effort to optimize,” Redzepi said. “I think that would be sad.”
Using the Bluefin tuna to show the impact of policymaking, “Omnivore” dedicates an episode to the coveted fish and how the implementation of a global tracking and tagging system helped its population rebound in recent years. However, not every industry has (or wants) strong regulations, and Redzepi believes that “great, pivotal” changes can only happen “when we have big-time governmental policies put into place where we have to adhere to a set of new standards.”
“I wish we were stronger, clearer, and less open for debate on what actually is the right thing to do,” Redzepi said.
“The difference between a disappearing population of Pacific or Atlantic bluefin and a thriving one is a few smart policy changes,” said Goulding. “That gives us hope that, just as quickly as our appetites can destroy the world, they can build it back up, as long as there’s smart policy and awareness and a sense of value around the food choices that we make.”
Although Redzepi is an advocate for stronger policies around food, he notes that they shouldn’t come at the expense of the everyday people who work in these industries. For example, new rules and cutting back on lobster consumption may be a necessity in the wake of climate change-fueled challenges with the lobster population, but restrictions should be paired with a path forward for those in the industry.
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“If it was a little more structured and more clear, perhaps there would be a shorter season to eat lobster, and that would be fine,” Redzepi said. “We don’t necessarily need to eat lobster all year long. But what does that mean for the lobster [fishermen]?”
“You’ll also have to help a whole industry figure out, OK, what do we do the rest of the year?” he added. “What other opportunities are there for us to harvest from the ocean? And what else are we eating?”
While change is “not easy” and “won’t just happen overnight,” Redzepi hopes that “Omnivore” will inspire others to value food more and be more conscious with their decisions around what they buy and eat.
“The fact is that how we eat, what we eat determines how healthy we are as a people worldwide,” said Redzepi. “How we grow it determines, more or less, how healthy the planet is. If we remember to value it, we might take more care of it.”
“To see the amount of effort that goes into that cup of coffee at Dunkin’ and the fact that those beans probably passed through 35 or 40 individual hands to get there, maybe you’ll pause next time and think, ‘Wow, unbelievable. Maybe I am willing to pay a little bit more for a better ingredient,’” Goulding said. “Or just have a level of respect for it that our generation doesn’t have naturally.”
“Omnivore” premieres July 19 on Apple TV+.
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Matt Juul can be reached at [email protected].