Noma’s Mexico Pop-Up Is Now Completely Booked

Chef René Redzepi’s hallowed Copenhagen restaurant Noma is preparing to take its show on the road again, heading to the trendy resort town of Tulum, Mexico for a seven-week pop-up beginning next April — and if you didn’t already score a table, you may be out of luck: Tickets went on sale at 10 a.m. EST today and the prime weekend tables were snapped up almost immediately. The rest of the dinner-only bookings were completely sold out by approximately 1:30 p.m.

At $600 per person plus 16 percent tax and a 9 percent service fee, the cost for a table of four clocks in at precisely $3,000 — which had to be paid in full at the time of booking, naturally. Noma Mexico will be an open-air restaurant that Redzepi says will be “hot, steaming, and unpredictable.” Servers will wear beach shorts and, yes, flip-flops.

Noma fans had a comparatively leisurely timeframe in which to snap up tickets this time around: Last year tickets to Noma’s 10-week Australia pop-up sold out in less than 90 seconds. Those who missed out on Mexico can always get on the waitlist.

Priced considerably higher than Noma’s previous full pop-ups — Tokyo and Sydney both clocked in at less than $400 per person — the sky-high ticket cost raised some eyebrows: The average daily wage in Mexico is $15, and more than 40 percent of the country lives in poverty. Redzepi later announced the pop-up would feed Mexican culinary students for free, and is also launching a Noma culinary scholarship that will bring select students to Copenhagen for internships.

• Noma Mexico [Official]
• Noma’s Mexico Pop-Up Is Charging $600 a Head [E]
• Noma’s Mexico Pop-Up Will Feed Culinary Students for Free [E]