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NOMA SYDNEY
Project category: Restaurant
Furniture: CH37 dining chair in customized smoke stained oak/ oil and black paper cord. CH337 dining table in customized smoke stained oak/ oil by Hans J. Wegner
Location: Barangaroo, inner-city suburb, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Architect: Lendlease; Interior designer: Foolscap Studio
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PROJECT
Since its opening in 2003, Noma’s highly original Nordic cuisine has drawn guests from around the world. Its numerous awards include two Michelin stars, and the restaurant has figured on the The World’s Best Restaurants list on no fewer than four separate occasions. In 2015, René Redzepi opened the doors to Noma’s first pop-up restaurant in Tokyo. At the beginning of 2016, the turn came to Sydney, where Redzepi and his 100 man strong team served dishes solely comprising raw ingredients from Australia, including crocodile fat, wattle powder and green ants. The 15 tables in the restaurant were sold out in four days, after which the waiting list quickly rocketed to 27,000 hopefuls keen to to experience what the critics described as a culinary adventure unlike any other. The restaurant was located on the ground floor of the Anadara building in the district of Barangaroo, where a gigantic business district featuring offices, apartments, restaurants and parks is currently under construction.
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LAYOUT & FURNISHINGS
Inspired by René Redzepi’s design brief, the architects’ vision was to create an interior whose materials and colours reflected the meeting of land and water – the Australian coast – where, for several weeks, Redzepi and his team sourced and sampled raw ingredients for their coming dishes. The 500 m2 restaurant afforded a superb view of water and sky through wavy glass windows that extended from floor to ceiling. The interior was created from Australian basic materials: walls made of trodden earth stacked in layers in a range of brown nuances. The ceiling featured black-painted plywood, while the oxidized floor consisted of stamped, rust-red earth which provided the bridging surfaces of the room. Two Xanthorrhoea trees planted in the floor and local flora arranged in vases served as the restaurant’s natural decor. In general, all the other elements were Australian in origin – handcrafted from genuine materials ranging from glass to ceramic grips, vases, serving bowls and plates. The Danish elements were jointly provided by Kvadrat and Carl Hansen & Søn. In keeping with Noma’s private dining room in Copenhagen and the pop-up restaurant in Tokyo, the restaurant’s Australian guests were introduced to furniture designed by Hans J. Wegner. The classic, simple tables and subdued, comfortable chairs made of oil-treated smoke stained oak, blended seamlessly with the consistently natural-themed interior. To mark the occasion, CH37 down under was draped in local wallaby skin from sustainable meat production.
PETER KREINER, CEO OF NOMA, ON THE INTERIOR DESIGN FEATURING CHS FURNITURE:
“We want our pop-up restaurants to serve as a link to our home base in Copenhagen. Bringing parts of the modern Danish aesthetic with us allows us to create the environment for our guests that we want. And because our Copenhagen private dining room is furnished with Wegner’s CH46 chairs, it made sense to continue this Wegner tradition first in Tokyo and now in Sydney as well. Carl Hansen & Son helped us customize the CH37 chairs and CH337 tables to match the space and our vision, so the result is a very warm, welcoming interior that creates an ideal backdrop for our cuisine.”
Photographer: Jason Loucas
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