Noma's Most Memorable Dishes

Noma, the Danish restaurant that has two Michelin stars to its name and has consistently been ranked among the world's best, has announced that it will be closing its doors at the end of 2016, with plans to reopen as an "open farm" in Copenhagen.

René Redzepi, Noma's chef who has led the kitchen for 12 years will serve his last service on New Year's Eve next year. With plans for a different location come plans for a different menu too. Redzepi told the New York Times in a recent interview, "We've allowed the format of a tasting menu to dictate what we cook."

Noma, whose name is a combination of the Danish words for Nordic (noridsk) and food (mad), made a name for itself due in part to Redzepi's fondness for foraging for food and innovative ways of cooking, including fermenting ingredients. Below are Newsweek's picks of the most memorable Noma dishes—both from the restaurant and those created and cooked by Redzepi when he was further afield.

Moss and cep

Although raw moss is incredibly bitter, it became a fashionable ingredient this summer, mostly due to this Noma dish. Redzepi fried Finnish reindeer moss, serving it on a bed of the green variety with pulverized cep mushrooms to create the bright, original dish.

Radish, soil and grass

Served in a clay pot, this dish lived up to its name, but diners were advised to "eat everything, including the soil." Radishes were buried in the "soil" which was in fact made out of malt and hazelnut flour, and underneath was hidden a layer of sheep's yogurt and grass.

Botan ebi and flavors of Nagano Forest

At the beginning of 2015, Redzepi moved his entire operation to Japan temporarily, where one of the most talked about dishes on the menu was one of botan ebi (shrimp) served with a scattering of tiny ants providing flavoring. In fact, the botan ebi sometimes turned out to be so freshly killed that it was still twitching when it arrived on the table. One blogger wrote that during his visit a shrimp on the plate next to his actually jumped onto the floor.

Sorrel leaf and cricket paste

Never one to be squeamish about using insects in the kitchen, these spicy sorrel leaves were folded over and sealed using the dark paste made out of crickets. They were then placed, standing to attention, in a dish of iced nasturtium.

Cabbage and live ants

When Redzepi ran a 10-day pop up at London hotel Claridge's in 2012, there were reports that he requested 20,000 live, edible ants as part of his list of ingredients. These were then served on cabbage leaves dressed with crème fraîche—the ants adding a flavour of lemongrass to the otherwise simple dish.

Veal fibres

A meticulous, painstakingly designed dish which was made by picking delicate fibers from a braised neck of veal, which were then separated further before being rolled into a ball and deep-fried.

The hen and the egg

One of the best known dishes from Noma is its DIY signature dish. Diners are instructed, with exact timings, to cook a wild-duck egg in a pan which is brought to their table using hay oil, mixing in herbs and leaves as they do so. The Wall Street Journal said that by the time you had completed the task, "A hundred tiny things have been orchestrated to ensure that you will be eating the best fried egg of your life."