Ali Sonko,
who has worked in the Noma kitchen since it first opened in 2003, was
announced at a party in Copenhagen to mark the restaurant’s last day at
its famous waterfront location in Christianshavn.
The restaurant,
named the world’s best four times by Restaurant magazine and three times
in the San Pellegrino World’s 50 Best, is due to move to a new location
and reopen as an urban farm in December.
In a Facebook
post, René Redzepi, the chef who runs Noma, said it was “one of the
happiest moments of my time at Noma” to announce that Ali was to become
one of his new business partners, saying it was in recognition of his
hard work and enduring smile.
“I don’t think
people appreciate what it means to have someone like Ali in the house,”
Redzepi told friends gathered for a party to mark Noma’s move. “He is
all smiles, no matter how his 12 children are faring.”
Sonko, 62, moved to Denmark 34 years ago after emigrating from his native Gambia
where he worked as a farmer, said his job as “the best ever”.
“I cannot describe
how happy I am to work here,” he told the Danish website BT. “There are
the best people to work with and I am good friends with everyone. They
show enormous respect towards me and no matter what I say or ask them,
they are there for me.”
Redzepi, whose
restaurant also has two Michelin stars, said he was also planning to
surprise other staff “with a piece of the walls they have chosen to work
so hard within”. Alongside Sonko, Lau Richter, Noma’s service director,
and James Spreadbury, an Australian who has managed the restaurant
since 2009, are also to be made partners in the business. Redzepi said
his father, also called Ali, had worked as a dishwasher when he had
arrived in Denmark as an immigrant from Macedonia.
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