They are not making money at $1,500 per head, as part of the reason is that René Redzepi is flying out 130 people from Copenhagen and paying for housing, transportation, and schooling for some.
Article from the LA Times today:
"Ever since chef René Redzepi announced that he is coming to Los Angeles to create a pop-up version of Noma, the Copenhagen restaurant named No. 1 in the world five times , food lovers across the world have reached out to ask how they can get reservations, even though the dates, location and cost were unknown.
On Monday morning Noma released an Instagram post with details about its Los Angeles residency, which will begin March 11 and run through June 26 . By nightfall, more than 20,000 people had signed up for the chance to make a reservation at the pop-up by attaching the phrase “LA26” to the post.
Only a fraction of those people will get a reservation.
Just 42 guests will be served at each seating, four days a week, at a location in Silver Lake that will be revealed to those with a confirmed reservation (to protect the residential neighborhood surrounding the site).
And the cost? At $1,500, it’s less than a Super Bowl ticket, which is expected to cost a minimum of $4,000, but more than almost every other restaurant in Los Angeles.
“I just sent $1,500 to my local food bank,” wrote one commenter on The Times’ website. “Thanks for reminding all of us what’s really important these days.”
Redzepi, who doesn’t expect to make a profit on his Los Angeles ventures — he’s aiming only to break even — would likely agree with that sentiment. He says he didn’t come to Los Angeles solely to feed the elite.
“Los Angeles is a city you have to interact with,” he said during a recent phone call as he was walking along Sunset Boulevard. “If you just hide yourself on the top of a hill, you’re not actually, in my opinion, being L.A.”
Which is why for the first time, the Noma team will be opening a shop where people can buy its hot sauces, garums, vinegar, coffee and more. Redzepi is also planning a series of collaborations with L.A. chefs at their restaurants, and he’ll be bringing in chefs from Copenhagen to do pop-up events. Prices for those events are expected to be more in line with what Angelenos are used to paying in the city’s restaurants.
In addition, Noma’s nonprofit MAD will host a series of talks and events, the first of which was a discussion of borders that took place in October at Hauser & Wirth in downtown L.A. with director Lulu Wang, Firstborn chef Anthony Wang, Diaspora Spice Co. founder Sana Javeri Kadri and L.A. Taco editor Javier Cabral.
With the nonprofit Culinary Careers Program (C-CAP), Redzepi’s team will give hands-on work experience and mentorships to students and program alumni from underserved communities. There will also be one table each night reserved for young industry professionals who can apply to enjoy a meal at Noma LA at no charge.
And as detailed in an information sheet on the residency, a small percentage of the revenue from the bookings will be donated “to provide professional training sessions and community dinner programs for school districts in and around the Los Angeles area.” For this, Redzepi’s team from MAD is working with Brigaid, started by former Noma head chef Dan Giusti , who left the world of fine dining to bring chef expertise to food-service programs in schools across the U.S.
Despite all this, Redzepi understands that a lot of people are going to focus on that $1,500 price tag, even though you can spend more than that at Aitor Zabala’s Somni in West Hollywood, where the menu and a premium wine pairing costs $1,595 before tax and tip (though with a non-alcoholic pairing the price is $745).
So why does it cost so much, when eating at Noma in Copenhagen itself is currently about $688 (minus a beverage pairing)?
The main reason is that Redzepi is bringing 130 people to Los Angeles from Copenhagen and paying for their housing, transportation and, in many cases, the schooling for staff members’ children.
“That’s all on us,” he said.
And why does a restaurant need 130 people to serve 42 people at a time?
First, there is the food itself, which is presented more like a piece of art than a plate of protein and a side dish. It’s an aesthetic that has been both admired and mocked in movies and TV shows like “The Menu” and “The Bear,” but it’s undeniably influential.
Then there are the ingredients. Noma became famous for expanding the range of what people consider fine dining by serving sea grasses, flowers and even reindeer brain and ants. There will be no reindeer in Los Angeles — the vast majority of the food used during the pop-up will come only from Southern California.
Redzepi and his team have already spent months researching, foraging, planting gardens and establishing relationships with small local producers in order to create the menu, which is expected to highlight new ways of using plants we see every day, like bougainvillea, and incorporate less commonly eaten items, including insects. The chef moved to Silver Lake full-time in November, and some members of his kitchen and foraging team arrived before that.
Other staff members are focused on the look and feel of the experience, essentially creating a fully operational restaurant at an estate that is normally a catering space.
And once Noma L.A. opens, the restaurant’s longtime regular servers will arrive, ensuring they don’t lose work during the pop-up.
“I can’t begin to explain how complicated and difficult it is to do these pop-ups without people immediately saying to me, ‘Well, why do you do it if it’s so difficult?’ ” Redzepi said.
“We can’t lose money, but earning money — making a profit — we haven’t tried that yet. And this will not happen in L.A. either.
“We’re doing it because I made a decision that big experiences, that’s our profit. And if there was a way of putting a monetary value on learning new things, meeting new people, just having an experience together, well, then our profit is probably like 95% of all the costs that we’re spending.”