@LisaAbend
RENÉ REDZEPI was not happy. Forty minutes into the first trial run of his restaurant Noma’s Sydney pop-up, the marron was coming out wrong—really wrong. The seventh course in a 12-course tasting menu, the indigenous Australian shellfish—which looks like a crayfish with its claws amputated—was sticking stubbornly to the grill. The ragout of a mango-eating goose on which the crustacean would perch was delicious, but the caramelized milk skin in which the two were wrapped was burning. And the palm frond baskets meant to encase the whole thing looked distressingly as if they had been woven by an errant band of kindergartners. A vein throbbed in Redzepi’s damp forehead. Marching over to the sweating chef working the grill, he said, “What the hell are you doing here?”
YES, CHEF: Achatz of Chicago’s Alinea restaurant ended a three-week stint at Madrid’s DiverXo on February 6 and, two weeks later, opened in Miami.
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