I ate at NOMA last week — a restaurant that’s widely considered to be one of the best, if not the best, in the world — and what I can’t stop thinking about is the napkins.
Yes, everything we ate was extraordinary, and the service was exceptional. But what sets NOMA apart are the little things. It’s the way you arrive at the table and the food you’re about to eat — the crab and fish and veggies — is sitting there on the table for you to observe before it goes into the kitchen to be prepared. It’s the details about the dish that the staff relay to you before you eat.
It’s the napkins.
A meal at NOMA is a multi-hour affair — our meal was more than a dozen courses and four hours long. I stood up at one point to use the bathroom, and when I came back, my napkin was no longer where I’d left it. I couldn’t figure out where I’d placed it.
I sat down, and that’s when I noticed it. The napkin had a small piece of string on the back, and the staff — in the 90 seconds while I was gone — walked over, and hung the napkin on the side of my chair.
It was such a tiny detail. Who spends time thinking about where your napkin should go when you stand up? But the fact that they did think about it, and then figured out such an elegant solution? That they took the time to made sure to put care and attention into the absolute smallest elements? To me, that was almost as impressive as the Norwegian king crab.
(Though, don’t get me wrong: the Norwegian king crab was darn good, too.)
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That’s the little hook on the back of the napkin. It was clearly something they’d made themselves — they took a linen napkin, sewed on a small piece of fabric to attach the hook to, and then inserted the string around it.