Top-Rated Restaurant Noma to Shut Dining Room in Post-Pandemic Pivot

Noma shows that even the most successful restaurants’ courses have been forever altered by COVID-19.

The three-Michelin-star establishment in Copenhagen, Denmark, which has many times been rated the world’s best restaurant and which consistently ranks among reviewers’ top picks, announced Monday (Jan. 10) that it is shutting down its eatery to become a flavor lab. The company is dubbing this transformation “Noma 3.0.”

“In 2025, our restaurant is transforming into a giant lab — a pioneering test kitchen dedicated to the work of food innovation and the development of new flavors, one that will share the fruits of our efforts more widely than ever before,” René Redzepi, Noma’s chef and co-owner, said.

The establishment noted that there will still be an element of serving diners, including limited-time pop-ups, but that the focus of the brand will be on developing “ideas and products.” The restaurant will continue operating in its current form through late 2024, after which it will make the change.

While January 2023 may seem a little late for a restaurant to announce it has been transformed by the pandemic, this move has been in the works for a couple of years, and it was indeed inspired by the outbreak’s effect on the industry.

“As soon as the pandemic hit, I had this feeling in me that it was time for something different,” The Wall Street Journal quoted Redzepi’s Instagram page on Monday, though the post or story appears to no longer be available.

The move could mark a desire to have a more enduring business model, one that does not rely on customers coming in through the door to spend several hundred dollars on a single meal, but rather that can provide value even in pandemic-constrained times. It could also suggest a desire to touch more parts of the restaurant industry — after all, a flavor can go further than a single dish.

In 2020, the restaurant experimented with new operating tactics. In May of that year, it announced a reopening as a wine and burger bar with takeout options.

The news showcases just how dramatic the pandemic’s effect on the industry has been, with even 20-year-old, world-renowned restaurants prompted to completely rethink their identities. Many eateries have changed or added to their business models in the aftermath of COVID-19, adding digital-only ghost kitchens or trying out new more off-premise-centric concepts.

Meanwhile, other restaurants have begun selling packaged product sand meal kits to keep their offerings relevant in the face of dining room closures. Still others turned their creativity to the on-premise experience.

“Restaurants have done an incredible job of pivoting with the pandemic,” Katherine Malone-France, chief preservation officer of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, told PYMNTS in an interview last year.

“We saw that with last years’ grantees, where grant funds helped to support not just working on their historic buildings, but creating outdoor spaces, upgrading outdoor spaces and things like that … but the pandemic is requiring these small businesses to pivot and then pivot again and then pivot again,” she said.