You may have or may not have heard about a documentary called Ants on a Shrimp. I hadn’t until two days ago when my mother in law mentioned it. The film is about Noma, a Danish restaurant that has been on the list of 50 best restaurants in the world since 2007 and topping the list for four years. The documentary takes time January of 2015 when the restaurant relocated its entire staff to Tokyo for five weeks.
Ok, and why am I talking about this documentary? It really stuck with me the period before the restaurant opened. Especially when René Redzepi sends his four cooks Rosio Sanchez, Thomas Frebel, Lars Williams and Kim Makkala to prepare the menu. It’s funny how when we live our day to day lives we often take for granted the effort put by someone for the simplest of things. And for me, that happens a lot with restaurants. I mean, I go into a restaurant, I order, and I eat. But watching all the effort put behind that takes you on a ride.
The four creative minds go on a ride working 20 hours per day for a month to create the perfect menu. And it’s all crashed on René arrives. The chef questions and deconstruct it all. And then it comes the scene when one of them says “Our work is 99% failure”. In a way that they do know that to achieve the greatness of being the best restaurant in the world ego is put aside. What comes in instead of it is the recognition that things can be better. They always can. And although it can be hard to watch, it can also give lots of insights. At least that’s what it gave me.
So if you feel like getting inspired by the creative process of those geniuses, you can watch it on Amazon. And I would advise you to watch with your belly full because boy you are going to be hungry.
