When I heard that Noma — widely considered the world’s best restaurant — was closing, I was ~generally~ surprised. In a wildly volatile segment (fine dining) of an already volatile industry (restaurants), Noma is as close to an enduring institution as you’re ever going to get. It’s won that dinky little “best restaurant on the goddamn earth” award five times and has three Michelin stars. It’s been covered by everyone from Anthony Bourdain to David Chang and there are two full documentaries Noma, My Perfect Storm and Ants On Shrimp about chef René Redzepi. (By the time the inevitable “Last Year at Noma” doc is complete the restaurant will have had its lifecycle presented for public consumption more thoroughly than the mid-tier Kardashians.)
That said, I didn’t believe for a hot second that the closure was related to the critique of fine dining offered in The Menu. Anyone who’s spent time around restaurants understands how difficult the model is, especially in its highest-end incarnations. One of the great incongruencies of the food world is this idea that the public has of how much good food costs to procure and prepare. We’ve been trained by McNuggets and boxed mac & cheese (and the general exploitation of migrant labor) to think that things like wild foraged limpets and the adrenal glands of cows that are only fed pasture-raised goat’s milk or whatever must also be sort of affordable. Quite simply, they’re not (even regular old organic produce is more costly than we’ve been led to believe). And while restaurants like Noma rely on stages — who work for free or mostly for free (a practice which has been maligned of late) — the fact is that these sorts of places are incredibly expensive to run. You think those monkfish livers are just smoking themselves?
Plus they’re grueling, especially for anyone who has a family. You can’t expect chef René Redzepi to run a restaurant forever when he could probably walk away with $30K per night doing private dinners for the mega-rich and corporate sponsors. Does that frustrate you? Blame late-stage capitalism, not a chef who actually wants to enjoy his life.
Anyyyyyyyway…
What did surprise me was that the team from Noma would begin using their test kitchen to create CPG (consumer packaged goods) products. Covering grocery extensively, I knew that we are in the heart of the CPG boom — a golden age when chili crisp and hot sauce can be advertised on digital platforms for pennies and don’t ever have to fight for IRL shelf space. But seeing one of the most renowned restaurants in the world shift to that model? It definitely made my eyebrows bounce.
I suppose it makes a lot of sense, though. High-end dining establishments like Noma are famous for having dishes that require 20 ingredients or maybe 100 ingredients which they refine until the final presentation seems simple. Much of the flavor and complexity comes from the fact that they are making wildly ornate sauces, vinegars, oils, etc. which they are then using in limited capacities. This is all to say that creating things like elevated sauces and flavor enhancers has… sort of been their stock in trade all along.
The only difference is that now they won’t make the final dish. You will.
Curious to see what Noma would come out of the gate with, I ordered their first product — “Smoked Mushroom Garum” (they now have four products in the market). “Garum” is fermented fish sauce, so what we’re talking about is a fungus-based flavor enhancer. They could have called it “Vegan Fish Sauce” but how pedestrian is that? Regardless of the name, this is an elixir that you might substitute or use in tandem with MSG, yeast flakes, shiitake salt… all the stuff you shake into the pan to ramp up umami flavors.
Like most flavor enhancers, the Noma Smoked Mushroom Garum proved incredibly malleable — so it’s no surprise that I went through the whole bottle over the past month. And like most everything associated with Noma (so I’ve heard!!!), it balances surface simplicity with deceptive depth. This leads us to:
NOMA PROJECTS SMOKED MUSHROOM GARUM, REVIEWED
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Before writing this, I did a brief perusal of Instagram to see how other people are using this product. It’s mostly the same — a capful at a time. Though some folks are using a bit more (Lucky them! The product itself isn’t too expensive but shipping pushes it up to $50/ bottle.) The creamy noodles above make a lot of sense because, combined with yeast flakes, you’re getting almost a parmesan flavor. The noodles above are udon and the recipe also features cashew butter but I think it would have worked equally well with olive oil and spaghetti.
That’s the great thing about products like this — their versatility. The application below — stewed collard greens — seems a lot more traditional but I love it and did my own riff on it multiple times:
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Here’s how I used my bottle of mushroom garum before it ran out:
- A capful in taco meat.
- A capful in ground beef for smash burgers (which my nephew deemed “Better than Mcdonald’s!”)
- A capful in carbonara sauce.
- A capful in chicken soup.
- Two capfuls in stewed dandelion greens.
- Three capfuls in Thai beef larb.
- Three capfuls in ramen broth.
- Four capfuls in vegan “cheesy” potatoes.
You get the idea. I tried it with everything. Sometimes vegan; sometimes not. I often paired it with other flavor enhancers, like MSG or actual fish sauce. And of course, I also tasted it plain for the sake of this review:
NOSE:
Don’t wedgie me, but.. this smells like the inside of a pizza oven that has been used a few hundred thousand times. You get the meaty notes and the earthiness. There’s a little bit of funk but it’s light enough that it could as easily be from a few stray mushrooms and some cheese that slid into the oven’s deepest reaches as it could be from some super scientific process invented by Noma Projects.
PALATE:
It tastes mostly like mushroom broth with… a bit more. There’s some smokiness. There’s some funk. It’s a less funky fish sauce but certainly doesn’t taste un-fishy. There’s a meatiness. That’s the flavor this product seems to cultivate the most “meatiness without real meat.” There’s a light fermented note.
After sipping a spoonful I wrote this down: “Yet another reminder that we don’t need ‘fake meat’ to imitate beef and pork. We already have mushrooms.”
It’s also pungent and pronounced enough that once you’re used to it you can kinda-sorta discern its presence (like fish sauce), rather than just using it because you believe my review or have faith in Noma’s prowess. I like that it doesn’t just fully vanish into a dish.
BOTTOM LINE:
This is a fantastic flavor enhancer. If price was no object, I’d call it a must-have. Especially if you, like me, want your burgers and tacos and lasagna all taste “mysteriously and inexplicably” better than everyone else’s. Noma’s smoked mushroom garum deepens the umami notes in most any dish (especially slow-cooked dishes) and creates enough intrigue on the palate that you want to go back for more.
I personally think it’s best with other flavor enhancers too — MSG, fish sauce, etc. But that’s because I’m an umami fiend.
If you’re vegan but crave the meaty depth that cheese and beef offer, you just found your north star. It’s a natural substitute for oyster sauce, fish sauce, and other Thai cooking essentials, as well as the cheeses and sardine sauce used in Italian cooking.
Is it cheap?
Not exactly, once you calculate shipping. But it’s the cheapest way to experience René Redzepi’s genius that you’ll ever get.
