A shallow stoneware bowl of dark mushroom broth on pale oak, beside a small dish of glossy brown sauce, a roasted ear of sweet corn, a few fresh mushrooms, a scatter of oat grains and pink beach rose petals

Noma Projects: A Restaurant Fermentation Lab, Bottled

September 29, 2026

Noma Projects is the product company of noma, the Copenhagen restaurant. It works out of what the company calls its workshop right beside the restaurant, in the partly urbanized industrial district of Refshaleøen. The company was founded in 2022, in the restaurant's own words, "to share the knowledge, innovations and flavors of noma beyond the four walls of our restaurant in Copenhagen." Its first release was a smoked mushroom garum, a fermented seasoning that descends from Roman fish sauce but is built on koji instead of fish guts. The four bottles read side by side below are Mushroom Garum (shop Mushroom Garum), Corn Yuzu Hot Sauce (shop Corn Yuzu Hot Sauce), its extra spicy version (shop Extra Spicy Corn Yuzu Hot Sauce), and Wild Rose Vinegar (shop Wild Rose Vinegar).

Who they are

The company's about page says Noma Projects was founded "building on two decades' worth of culinary innovation" to share ingredients "from the past, present, and sometimes even future of restaurant noma." At launch its COO, Annika De Las Heras, told Wallpaper that it was "a way that we can channel all of our knowledge, and experience, and creativity, and curiosity into projects that will live outside the physical walls of this building," and the magazine described a series of projects, media and environmental programs among them, with food, flavor and education at their core.

By December 2023, Vogue Scandinavia reported, the range had grown to eight products, and the mushroom garum was still the top seller alongside a product called Dashi RDX. The magazine named Mette Søberg as head of the noma test kitchen and Cristina Megías as production manager at Noma Projects, with De Las Heras still COO. Every label since the start has been created by the British artist David Shrigley.

Year	Event	Source
2022	Noma Projects founded; Smoked Mushroom Garum is the first release	noma.dk; Noma Projects
2022	COO Annika De Las Heras describes the company's aims to Wallpaper	Wallpaper
2023	Eight products in the range; mushroom garum still the top seller	Vogue Scandinavia
After 2022	Mushroom Garum reworked to include Oat Garum from Swedish oat byproducts	Noma Projects

From fish sauce to koji

Garum began as a fermented fish sauce made around the Mediterranean. A 2009 paper in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition describes the process: fish sauce comes from fish breaking down in salt mainly through the fish's own enzymes, and the Romans made it the same way Southeast Asian producers make fish sauce now.

Noma changed the enzyme source. According to the company's journal, Thomas Frebel, a former head of the test kitchen, first suggested making garum from meat instead of fish, and the kitchen found that adding koji, a grain cultured with a mold, can cut the time to make garum by more than half. Its garums ferment in a room held at 60°C, or 140°F, and at that temperature a bucket of meat typically becomes finished garum in 10 to 12 weeks. Beyond beef, the journal lists squid, mackerel, clams and peas, and, less conventionally, bee pollen, grasshoppers, moth larvae and pig's blood.

The Mushroom Garum page gives the point of the switch plainly. The old recipes relied on "the naturally occurring enzymes in fish intestines"; koji lets the company use a wider range of high-protein ingredients, mushrooms among them, and make "less salty but equally captivating garums."

What changed in the bottle

In 2022, Wallpaper described the first garum as mushrooms crushed with salt and rice koji, brewed for months, then cold-smoked and bottled. The product page now calls that 2022 Smoked Mushroom Garum the company's first-ever release and describes the current bottle as combining fermented mushrooms, rice koji and "the noma test kitchen's latest obsession, Oat Garum," a ferment that began with a search for a use for solid byproducts a farmer in Sweden offered the kitchen. The current ingredient list reads water, mushrooms at 34 percent, oats, rice koji and salt, every agricultural ingredient organic, and it does not mention smoking. The bottle is vegan, gluten-free and soy-free. The Noma Projects Mushroom Garum guide tells the garum's own story at more length.

The four bottles, read side by side

Bottle	Main ingredients	Salt per 100 ml	Salt per 15 ml tablespoon	Heat or acidity	Once opened, refrigerated
Mushroom Garum	Mushrooms 34%, oats, rice koji, salt	7 g	1.05 g	Not applicable	3 months
Corn Yuzu Hot Sauce	Sweet corn 54%, yuzu zest 4%, yellow habanero 1%	2.5 g	0.38 g	1,230 SHU	4 months
Corn Yuzu, Extra Spicy	Sweet corn 53%, yuzu zest 4%, yellow habanero 3%	2.5 g	0.38 g	1,620 SHU	4 months
Wild Rose Vinegar	Apple cider vinegar, apple juice, rose petals 20%	0 g	0 g	5% acidity	6 months

The salt figures come from the producer's per-100 ml panels. EU labeling rules calculate salt as sodium multiplied by 2.5, so a tablespoon of the garum carries about 420 mg of sodium and a tablespoon of either hot sauce about 150 mg. The garum also lists 6.5 g of sugars per 100 ml.

The extra spicy bottle is, in the producer's words, a "bold riff" on the original with the same texture and flavor. Both are built on sweet corn, blackcurrant wood oil, apple cider vinegar, celery juice, yuzu zest and a yeast reduction of split peas, rice, roasted yeast, gooseberries and salt. The producer says the yuzu is harvested in winter and its zest preserved, and the corn, habanero and blackcurrant branches are harvested in summer. The extra spicy bottle carries three times the habanero, 3 percent against 1, and the producer lists it at 1,620 Scoville units against the original's 1,230. The producer notes that heat may vary from batch to batch.

The vinegar is made from hand-foraged petals of Rosa rugosa, the beach rose that grows along Danish coastlines. It began as a byproduct of the kitchen's pickled roses. It is 20 percent petals at 5 percent acidity.

Using them

The producer suggests the garum for ragùs, broths, cooked vegetables and risotto. The How to Use Noma Projects Mushroom Garum guide works through those, and the brothy beans recipe is the easiest place to start. For the risotto, the dried porcini mushroom risotto recipe is the natural place to try it, and the dried mushrooms guide covers the dried side of the same flavor. The umami guide explains why a mushroom ferment reads as savory depth.

The producer calls the hot sauce a staff favorite, used on everything from barbecued fish and vegetables to fried eggs and salads; the hot sauce guide places it among the rest. The rose vinegar belongs in a light dressing. The vinaigrette ratio guide gives the proportions, and the vinegar guide covers the category.

For the movement behind the company, the New Nordic in a Bottle guide tells the Copenhagen story. The Yugeta Shoyu producer guide sets a fermented seasoning from another tradition beside this one.

Products ship nationwide from theambrosianpantry.com, and the shop is at 263 Josephine Street in Cherry Creek, Denver.