Chef Shuffle

Noma Has a New Pastry Chef, and He’s From New York

Malcolm Livingston
Malcolm Livingston Photo: Courtesy of Antoinette Bruno/StarChefs.com

In today’s bit of excellent chef news, Malcolm Livingston II of wd~50 will begin a new job at Noma in Copenhagen later this fall. The whole thing seems like a perfect fit: Wylie Dufresne announced that his trailblazing Lower East Side restaurant will close in November, and René Redzepi recently issued a typically candid call for a pastry chef. Rosio Sánchez, Noma’s current pastry chef, trained under Alex Stupak at wd~50 and will soon be leaving the kitchen to open a taco shop.

Redzepi notably honored Dufresne with a chef-heavy, over-the-top surprise party earlier this year, and though they are separated by thousands of miles, there’s something of a communal bond between the two pioneering kitchens. “We’ve hopefully done something right in preparing them for the next level,” Dufresne modestly tells the Times.

Redzepi says the call for job applicants drew a pool of about 50 qualified chefs but adds Livingston was “always in the back of my mind.” For his part, the new chef at one of the world’s most insanely popular restaurants will have to learn about all kinds of indigenous ingredients from the Denmark area, then have to school himself on wild foods from Japan almost immediately after that when Noma pops up in Tokyo for an extended stay. He tells the Times he’s very much looking forward to diving in. “I’ve never foraged before. I’m from the Bronx,” he says.

Related: Wylie Dufresne’s Unwavering Vision Turned wd~50 Into a Vital New York Restaurant
[NYT]

Noma Has a New Pastry Chef, and He’s From New York