WATCH: When Noma Makes School Lunch for New York City Students

Denmark’s Noma Projects, by the World’s Best Restaurant, made lunch for nearly 600 K-8 students. Here’s what happened.

Noma, the three-Michelin-Starred restaurant in Copenhagen, launched Noma Projects in 2022 to bring Noma flavors and products out of Denmark, and make them more accessible to the rest of the world. The fine dining restaurant, which is known for its focus on wild local ingredients through foraging and an eye to seasonality, was awarded the honor of “World’s Best Restaurant” by the World’s 50 Best Restaurants Awards in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2014 and 2021.

Earlier this spring, Noma Projects took its efforts across the Atlantic, embarking on a weeklong tour of New York City through a series of pop-up events, ranging from book signings to cooking at the Union Square Greenmarket. Among those tour events: a school lunch takeover, closed to the public, in which DREAM Charter School students in grades K-8 were offered sandwiches and yogurt parfaits made using Noma Projects’ Pumpkin Seed Praline.

The DREAM Charter event on April 19 was facilitated by Brigaid, a company founded by Dan Giusti, formerly Noma’s head chef, that places professional chefs in public foodsystems like schools, senior organizations and prisons.

Through three back-to-back lunch services last month, the Noma Projects team experienced first-hand the challenges — and joys — of ensuring students are provided a nutritious, delicious lunch every day. Watch how this unprecedented service went for a team from the world’s best restaurant as they faced their toughest critics — schoolchildren.

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