The rise and fall of the New Nordic Cuisine

Abstract

This article provides a history of the New Nordic Cuisine—the ideology, the politics, the criticism, and the counter-reactions to it. The article has a particular focus on the Copenhagen restaurant scene which has been recognized as the epicenter of the movement, and it argues that after a decade of dominance of the strict Nordic locavorism, the dogmas of New Nordic Cuisine are being challenged from within by a generation of chefs who were brought up in New Nordic restaurants, but they are currently distancing themselves from the movement. A notable example of this new generation is Christian Puglisi, who while holding on to some of the core elements of the New Nordic Cuisine (particularly ideals of sound production and the focus on vegetables) refuses the geographical dogmas of the movement and unfolds a cosmopolitan fusion kitchen. The article also discusses how different actors in different contexts have used the New Nordic Cuisine to position themselves in the culinary field either by adhering to or rejecting the concept, and how the example of the New Nordic Cuisine highlights the complex and often contradictory dynamics of the local/global dichotomy in contemporary food and consumer culture.