Brave new palate

Entering the world of chefs, how-ever, was completely accidental: "I was 15, a bad kid, smoked a lot, used to get into fights. I was angry and I didn't care." He says he was kicked out of school in the 9th grade and followed his best friend to a cooking school.

He'd found his passion, but was in a "brutal world" after six months in school.

He had to find an apprenticeship, where the marching orders were "do the job fast and don't fall behind".

He became an adult through working insane hours in the Michelin three-star restaurant elBulli in Spain, The French Laundry in the United States and Kong Hans Kaelder in Copenhagen, before he was contacted by established chef and culinary ideologist Claus Meyer in 2002.

The two, with some top Scandinavian chefs in 2004, formulated the "new kitchen manifesto". In the past decade, Noma has embodied the core elements in the statement with fresh, local ingredients and gastronomic diversity in focus.

On a trip to Greenland, where Redzepi traveled to hunt musk ox, he got stuck in a storm at an abandoned US military base, where he stayed for about five days. The impossible situation served as a reminder to walk out of his comfort zone.

Open-minded as he is, however, some ethnic foods, such as rotten shark from Iceland and stinky tofu from China, are beyond his palate.

Apart from cooking. Redzepi has published two books on cooking. The latest, A Work in Progress: Journal, Recipes and Snapshots, came out last October.

"Writing is a way to distill your reality," he says. "But I hate it: It's much easier to make a sauce."