Noma’s Peter Kreiner on 100 DKK Price Hike at “World’s Best Restaurant”

Noma, Rene Redzepi’s avant-garde Nordic restaurant in Copenhagen, increased the price of its two menus by 100 DKK ($18-$19) about two weeks ago. The restaurant is now charging 1195 DKK for its 7-course menu and 1495 DKK for its 12-course menu; that’s up from 1095 and 1395, price points which more or less held steady for about a year.

Note: Prices for Noma are tougher to estimate in US dollars because of exchange rate volatility; 1195 DKK was $227 on Monday morning; today it’s $219; 1495 DKK was $284 yesterday; right now that’s almost $10 cheaper at $275. And as is always the case in Denmark, prices are reflective of a 25% value-added tax. 

To learn more about these changes at Noma, which holds two Michelin stars and the top ranking on San Pellegrino’s list of the world’s best restaurants, we turned to managing director Peter Kreiner, who was nice enough to chat with The Price Hike via email. Like any proper Scandanavian, Mr. Kreiner was quite precise. He spoke about hiring a new sous-chef, Denmark’s “fat tax” and adding a few new snacks to the menu.  

Why did you increase your prices to 1195 DKK and 1495 DKK? Presumably because of rising food and labor costs? Yes, you are correct and to be more precise, the reasons can be divided into several factors: 

1. During the last year, we have hired a sous chef specifically to look for innovative and fresh produce. This means that we now have much better produce and level of quality - e.g. fresh langoustines coming in from Faroe Islands multiple times a week. But this quality also has a cost. 

2. Since this sous-chef position is new - it also costs. 

3. We have added four extra snacks - which, despite their small size, are four extra servings, and therefore has a price. 

4. There has been introduced a new “fat tax” here in Denmark, increasing the price on a lot of different products. 

Therefore, we have actually wanted to raise the prices for quite a while, but have kept postponing it. This was due, among other things, to the fact that we have a lot of foreign guests, and with the current exchange rate, it is more costly for e.g. an American to visit us than before. However, we have now reached a point where we are losing money, why we have had to do it.

How long did you manage to keep prices at 1095 and 1395 for? About a year, if my guestimate is correct? Do you generally make steady price increases every year or so? You are right, it was approximately for a year. We don’t have a rule of thumb in terms of price increases, as it is not something we want to do frequently…We don’t want to change the prices constantly. They should be somehow steady.

Does Noma’s status as a seasonal, local restaurant help you on pricing,in that you don’t have to worry as much about the price of gasoline and transportation impacting your ingredient costs? Yes and no. Yes as we don’t use products from the other side of the world, which are costly to ship. No, because we do get some of the most fresh produce in from other countries here in Scandinavia and this can be quite costly as well (Peter Kreiner). 

We at the Price Hike haven’t visited Noma ourselves, but we’ll rate this one a STRONG BUY based on other accounts, particularly that of our Bloomberg colleague Richard Vines; the shorter menu was 995 DKK ($182 USD) during his meal back in 2010. Let the record state that Danes don’t typically tip as do Americans; we understand that adding up to 10% on excellent service is about right in Copenhagen.