René Redzepi, the chef and co-owner of Copenhagen restaurant Noma, has tested positive for Covid and will not appear at the week-long dinner series in Brooklyn, American Express wrote in an email to attendees Monday.
As a result, American Express said it would refund the price of dinner — $700 per person — to anyone who paid to attend the sold-out series, which runs through Friday.
In his email, American Express Platinum Presents, a partner at the event along with Resy, assured guests that the Brooklyn-based Noma team, including co-owner Peter Kreiner and executive chef Thomas Frebel, a longtime lieutenant of the Mr Redzepi, had not been in contact with Mr Redzepi, and were tested daily.
At dinner Tuesday night, a welcome video from an apologetic Mr Redzepi followed, followed by sea urchin hors d’oeuvres, crispy cauliflower waffles and ebelskivers fried in duck fat.
Dinner, in an airy repurposed warehouse in Dumbo, consists of a sequence of sumptuously decorated dishes of caviar, black truffles, lobster and king crab, and offers unusual natural wines.
An appetizer consists of small green peas in a jelly-mushroom broth. That is followed by a sweet crunchy whole blanched white turnip, combined with Dover sole filled with mousse and glazed with a paste of dried tomatoes and kanzuri chili paste. Soft king crab with egg and black truffles comes in a shell-sized dish, and succulent fried cod collar with premium Osetra caviar is served to be eaten by hand.
Maine lobsters are studded with petals for the final savory course, followed by a yogurt dessert with poppy seeds, cardamom, and chamomile—an elegant, refreshing finish.
The 50 dinners per evening are sent home by the ceramist Katrine Binzer with a gift bag containing a bowl.
While it’s hard to put a value on such a unique meal, the $700 all-inclusive price tag wouldn’t have gone out of line. The dinner could have been touted as one of those “money can’t buy” experiences. This time it didn’t have to be for money.
