Voted the world's best restaurant for 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2014 by the San Pellegrino World's 50 Best Restaurant awards, Noma is a two Michelin star restaurant run by chef René Redzepi and Claus Meyer in Copenhagen, Denmark. The name being a contraction of two Danish words nordisk mad, or Nordic food. René Redzepi and Noma have reversed the direction of food creativity, insisting that nature, and the exploration of nature should be the foundation of cooking. Known for using foraging techniques to find his produce, and only using ingredients found on Nordic countries, Redzepi is considered to be the founder of the Nordic Cuisine movement. Redzepi operates at the cutting edge of gourmet cuisine, combining an unrelenting creativity and a remarkable level of craftsmanship with an inimitable and innate knowledge of the produce of his Nordic terroir.

Each dinner at Noma is introduces to Nordic cuisine via its inimitable series of 20 servings that include the likes of sea urchin toast and caramelised milk and cod liver, before the meal is rounded off with a stunning array of 'treats'. Redzepi's food can at times be shocking – visceral even – but diners who are prepared to put themselves in the kitchen's hands rarely leave disappointed. With flavour to the fore, there are dishes here that slap you in the face and make you feel glad to be alive.

Housed in an old warehouse converted building, the restaurant's interior is re-designed by Space Copenhagen. The original interior of taupe, cream and brown hues has been replaced by a muted, slick white, grey and black colour scheme. A new oak floor has been laid, along with a new bar and a new, brick wall running through the restaurant. The biggest change is to the lounge area, which has a cosier, "more Nordic", feel. ""It is as if the restaurant has moved 1000 kilometres north," according to chef René Redzepi.

The chairs and tables in the restaurant are the same design as in the original Noma, but the surfaces and colours have been changed. In the lounge the furniture is all new featuring the new Ren Chair and Sofa recently designed by Space Copenhagen "We felt a great importance in protecting the honest, earthy feel of the restaurant and balancing it with refinement of detail and elegance," says Space Copenhagen's Peter Bundgaard Rützou and Signe Bindslev Henriksen. "It was very much about using organic materials such as wood, stone, eather, brass and linen in a new way; materials that age beautifully over time."

Never content to sit still, Redzepi and his crew are shipping the restaurant out to Japan in early 2015 for two months, where they will seek to apply their philosophy to Japanese ingredients.

This article is part of the Nordic Design: Now & Then series.