Behold, René Redzepi’s Cinematic Universe

In 2023, Noma chef-owner René Redzepi stupefied those in step with the rarified world of fine dining when he announced the restaurant’s impending closure. “It’s unsustainable,” he said of the working conditions and financial margins at the heart of top-tier fine dining. Redzepi has since announced that Noma will continue to operate in Copenhagen until spring 2025—an extension from the 2024 closure he had initially shared. And with the debut of Apple TV docuseries Omnivore, as well as a few cameos on The Bear, Redzepi seems to have found a new medium to get his message across.

With the June release of The Bear’s third season, restaurant-pilled viewers got familiar with Redzepi’s face and the Noma compound as Jeremy Allen White’s Carmy Berzatto ponders whether he can stomach life as a chef-owner in fine dining. In the show, the fictional chef reflects on his years spent in the kitchens of Daniel Boulud, Thomas Keller, and Redzepi as he grapples with the same issues of razor-thin margins and workplace management that the Noma chef has attributed to his decision to close. Omnivore, which Redzepi narrates, peeks into how he thinks about the sourcing and culinary applications of “the purest artisanal forms” of eight hero ingredients: chile, tuna, salt, banana, pig, rice, coffee, and corn.

“It’s super practical, but it also becomes hard to even understand and be connected to a season or to the people that actually grew this for you, to a landscape, Redzepi recently said, reflecting on pre-packaged meals at Whole Foods.”

Each episode of Omnivore focuses on a single ingredient—and the laborious endeavors undertaken by the producers whose generational know-how allows the rest of the world to partake in their gastronomic delights. Redzepi introduces each ingredient before turning the mic and camera over to the artisans who harvest fleur de sel from the west coast of France, grow coffee beans in Rwanda, and steward black-footed pigs through Spain—before they make it to our kitchens, or those of our favorite restaurants.