The challenge has been to evoke NOMA without letting it overshadow the new venture, and to shake up the almost reverence that has come to be associated with a reservation there, without disputing the respect that Redzepi’s iconic establishment has earned which Baumann and his menu have accomplished. But even before looking at or tasting the menu, the space itself designed by SPACE Copenhagen, founded by Signe Bindslev Henriksen and Peter Bundgaard Rutzou -also responsible for René Redzepi’s NOMA- has also evidently accomplished just that.

The design studio has highlighted the building’s former use as an industrial warehouse, offering accents of colour used with profound precision, to offset the lingering emptiness with inviting warmth. Meanwhile, the neon blue sign on the restaurant’s wall keeps a misguiding distance from the bursts of green and red in its interior, tempering the muted simplicity of concrete and dark metals.

All the furniture, also designed by SPACE Copenhagen, orchestrates diners into a casual flow that takes its cues from the communal tables with their long benches, the curved details found on the barstools, and the tables that set up little islands within the space (for the 80 diners that Restaurant 108 can accommodate). It is a predominantly Scandinavian style of design, one that finds comfort in reductionism, and at the same time one that seeks to entertain it.