Legendary Copenhagen restaurant Noma may be temporarily closed, but that doesn’t mean fans of chef René Redzepi’s influential, Michelin-starred cuisine will have to wait until the new location opens later this year
Much like Redzepi’s previous Noma incarnations, the Tulum pop-up—which bows April 12th under a canopy of palm trees on a cleared edge of jungle behind La Zebra hotel—will offer a never-before-seen menu featuring hyper-local ingredients.
And though Redzepi is known for his love of foraging, he won’t be depending on found ingredients alone to make up the (much-discussed) $600-per-person multi-course dinner; This time around, the Noma team has partnered with Traspatio Maya, a nonprofit network of 15 Mayan communities located around the Yucatán Peninsula, to provide indigenous crops like white naal teel corn, xtop pepita (pumpkin seeds), rare wild bee larva (whose harvest only occurs during a crescent moon when the larvae are in development), and pure sweet-and-sour melipona honey from the Calakmul reserve, a UNESCO World Heritage site.
We have many chef friends throughout Mexico: Roberto Solis from Néctar in Mérida has been an incredible help to us; Jorge Vallejo from Quintonil in Mexico City; Enrique Olvera from Pujol has been a friend and advisor from when we made the first decision to come; we are having wine from Jair Téllez from Baja, Lalo from Máximo Bistrot has taken us to farms in the countryside; Benito from Manzanilla in Ensenada hooked us up with all of the great seafood; chef Alex and Lily Ruiz are helping us get our tomatoes from Oaxaca; Gaby Ruiz is picking jackfruits and guanabana for us in Tabasco; Tomas from Guadalajara helped us find clams in the Sea of Cortez; the list goes on and on.
