With the closing of Noma forever slated for 2025, Karrie and I thought it was worth attempting to get tickets to the Noma pop up in Kyoto. So we woke up at 4:55, had a cup of coffee and started the countdown, fingers poised on the trackpad, ready to pounce on any reservation we could find in during the girls’ fall break. We landed on October 17th at lunch and plans for the Opie and CC’s first trip to Japan were set into motion.

We booked a table for two, the girls are not ready for this sort of culinary adventure yet. The restaurant let us know that we’d likely be paired with another couple at our table. We were seated with Neal Fellah and Nicole Adlman and we were relieved to find that Noma takes as much care in their table-mate pairing as they do with their cuisine. Or maybe we just got lucky.

Nicole is a multi-city manager for Eater and Neal is a documentary producer with a focus on food-related stories, although he’s now working on a Butthole Surfers documentary. Good conversation and an (of course) epic meal.

So let’s get into it.

Although the fall colors were JUST starting to poke out from the trees of Kyoto, fall leaves were a running theme through this meal, first starting with the steamed crab, buried under a pile of said fall leaves. Although many leaves were served as not-intended-to-eat garnish, we managed to only eat one forbidden leaf. More on that later.

After we uncovered the crab, it was rich, succulent and surgically prepared. You can see a fine knife cut on the detail below. And in the knuckles they tight-fit thick green onion root whose taste was steamed into the crab.

Served with the crab was a pine brush, used to lather the crab with a delicious, creamy sauce.

Next up was a second crab dish, jellied crab head. Aces for presentation, but fell more into the interesting category for me in terms of texture and taste, especially compared to the perfection of the first crab. The jellies and the “fruit roll ups” of Noma are cool, but never the stand-outs for me.

The next course was small but a destroyer. I’m partial to salmon roe generally, but of course, the Noma team infused their roe with delicate smoke and seasonings. It was extraordinary, and served in a rolled sugarcane leaf that let the shot of perfect salmon roe slide right into your mouth.

We were genuinely excited for the announcement of the next dish – gingko nuts. On our first trip to Tokyo some 20 years ago, we adventured into the unknowns of Tokyo, largely just pointing at things and ham-handedly asking the waiter to take care of us. The lone ingredient that we did not like on that trip was gingko nuts. It’s spectre has remained for over two decades. We’ve tried a few times subsequently and still held to our initial sentiment: we don’t like gingko nuts. I am happy to report that, while a vague remnant of the chalky texture we didn’t like remained, the rich buttery broth and infusion of seasonings and herbs made the impossible possible: these gingko nuts were delicious. Our visit to Noma in Copenhagen introduced us to the their fondness for pine tree accents, the delicious pickled pine tip olives were the second pine accent in the first four dishes, more forest was to come.

The sea snail was of course delicious, and the presentation mighty fine, but the smoky, grilled koji made it special. Koji is a classic japanese seasoning (fermented rice mold) we’ve had before, but never grilled!

This is about the time that the ample wine pairing starts to kick in and the description of what’s in the taco gets a bit fuzzy in my brain. I can say, however, that this little taco was delicious. The Wasabi leaf wrapper was very cool, it had a very mild wasabi flavor but not nearly as strong as the ground root.

Wine pairing list below. Karrie got the NA juice pairing which was also fabulous. As per the norm, we each sampled each other’s pairing flight.

The black “forbidden” rice was another highlight dish for us, an absolutely perfect texture and flavor, rich black rice with on top of a creamy walnut sauce. Allegedly in the olden days, black rice was once considered so rare and delicious that it was reserved exclusively for the Chinese emperor and the ruling classes. Ordinary people were forbidden from consuming it, thus the name “forbidden rice.”

The next dish was a bit of a palate cleanser, a delicious one: paper thin slices of myoga ginger with seaweed in a fermented rice sauce.

Another highlight dish for us, smoky grilled abalone mushrooms were served “dipping noodle” style, with a black truffle and egg dipping sauce. I snapped a picture of the serving dish, the truffles were placed atop a giant wedge of black fungus. Not much left of that egg truffle dipping sauce you will note.

This had the texture of a fruit roll up. You were supposed to peel off the leaf from the actual leaf. Our table ate the whole damned thing. It was tasty although maybe the real leaf was a bit on the fibrous side. Our server was a little shocked. It was paired with the amazing broth below.

Mushrooms and foraged herbs and whatever umami alchemy the Noma team has up their sleeves formed an amazing rich broth. We were instruced to breath in deep with each sip and drink it through the foraged fall leaves. We had a mossy version of this idea at the Copenhagen winter meal a few years ago that was also quite wonderful.

The entre course has arrive: more incredible mushrooms, wild deer, lotus root and a rich mushroom sauce for dipping.

The sweet oyster was an incredibly scuplted confection, a work of art. A candy shell, probably white chocolate based covered an oyster ice cream center, rich, creamy and slightly briny like the sea. Superb.

So besides gingko nuts, the other ingredient I just don’t care for on the planet is chestnuts. I’ve wanted to like them. I’ve roasted them on an open fire, I’ve sampled fine confectioners versions of them, but yet until October 17th, I hadn’t had one that I liked. As if sensing my least favorite two ingredients on the planet, René Redzepi followed up his amazing gingko transformation and also made the chestnut shine for me. Topping the tasty morsels with caviar was icing on the delicious chestnut cake.

The final of the three desserts was my favorite. Creamy balanced with crunchy, sweet mixed with salty peanut and bitter dark chocolate. And, like the oyster before, the peanut was a whimsical piece of art as well.

And that’s it!

How do I rank 2024 Kyoto pop up vs the 2017 Tulum pop up vs. the Copenhagen permanent restaurant? I’d say Tulum 1, Copenhagen 2, and Kyoto 3. But these are almost certainly the three best meals I’ve had in my entire life, so third place ain’t bad.

We are so happy we made the commitment to come out to this particular iteration of the Noma magic. We are going to try to book one more time at the Copenhagen mothership before they close for good in 2025. The world will be just a bit less tasty when that sad day comes. But of course, those who trained under René Redzepi over the years will continue the journey. Who knows, maybe one of those will become my new number one down the pike.