The Noma chef chats with T+L about his new Apple TV+ series, “Omnivore.”
The pulse of a city is often found at the markets and how people dine out.
You gotta sit and taste.
Rene Redzepi talking with staff on the Apple TV+ show Omnivore.Credit:Courtesy of Apple TV+
T+Lspoke with Redzepi in advance of the series launch.
Travel + Leisure: How did the show come to be?
Is this something you’ve been thinking about for a while?
A spread of fish, vegetables, and rice seen in a shot from the Apple TV+ show Omnivore.Courtesy of Apple TV+
Rene Redzepi: It’s more than a decade in the making.
And then during Covid, so many decisions were made for Noma and for myself.
And one of them was,now it’s really time for us.
Courtesy of Apple TV+
We’re curious how you chose the ingredients and decided where in the world they would take you.
Was that a long process to narrow down?
We had a list of 150 ingredients that all had a story to be told.
A worker in a corn field, from the Apple TV+ show Omnivore.Courtesy of Apple TV+
We knew that we wanted a story on love, our love relationship with food.
And that became the chile episode.
It is just so mind boggling that we just eat them for pain and pleasure.
Raising a toast with snacks, in a still from the Apple TV+ show Omnivore.Courtesy of Apple TV+
But we have so many other stories that are incredible.
There are some mind-blowing stories within vanilla that people don’t know about.
A lot of food shows leave this out.
Why was that important?
Almost everything that’s wrong in the world can be told through food as well.
Then some of it ends up in LA in some restaurant in Venice Beach, on a Caesar salad.
Funny enough, some of it even ends back where it came from as canned tuna.
That is the modern food system.
That is how we eat most of the time.
A tortilla with a slight hint of smoke.
Eggs are runny as you cut into them.
Those are the real experiences, in my opinion.
Not a fancy restaurant with caviar.
Many people are interested in connecting with food culture when traveling.
What would you say to someone wanting to explore that?
Traveling with food as your prism is the most amazing way, in my opinion.
You gotta sit and taste.
When I travel for myself, I travel very, very slow.
I actually travel and walk.
That was 500 some miles.
Once you talk to people, they will always point you into something amazing.
They always know someone.
Any favorite places that you find yourself returning to?
I also really, really love Turkey Istanbul, particularly, is a big favorite of mine.
My family are ofAlbanian heritage, so it’s almost the same food.
And the country of Georgia has mind-blowing food, mind-blowing wine.
Next, I’m going to the Basque Country.
I’m spending 14 days just walking from place to place, stopping in, doing some research.
A slight hint of smoke.
Eggs are runny as you cut into them.
Those are the real experiences, in my opinion.
Not a fancy restaurant with caviar.
Omnivoredebuts on Apple TV+ on Friday, July 19.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
