How René Redzepi’s “Omnivore” picks up where Anthony Bourdain left off

In anticipation of the grand closing of Noma — the Copenhagen-based “gastronomic mecca” widely regarded as the best restaurant in the world — chef-owner René Redzepi is tapping into the entertainment industry. Redzepi recently made a television cameo in Episode One of the new season of “The Bear,” appearing in one of Carmy’s flashbacks. Now, Redzepi has an on-screen project of his own that’s currently available on Apple TV+.

Titled “Omnivore,” the eight-part series centers around the beauty and complexities of the world’s most universal language: food. Each episode spotlights and celebrates the cultivation, transformation and consumption of the most essential ingredients known to man, including bananas, chilies, coffee, corn, pork, rice, salt and tuna. Redzepi travels around the world — Denmark, Serbia, Thailand, Spain, Japan, India and Djibouti, just to name a few places — to unravel the history behind food and showcase it as something more than just an object of sustenance. Food, as the show portrays, has the power to transcend borders and connect us all.

“This is the story of everyday items that have changed the world in ways most of us have never considered. Add them all up, and you get a recipe for humanity,” Redzepi says in the beginning of the series’ first episode. “At the heart of that recipe, is an ingredient that forever burned in my mind as the transformative powers of food, and that’s where my journey begins.”

In an interview with “Food & Wine,” Redzepi said “Omnivore” was heavily inspired by the David Attenborough-narrated series “Planet Earth.” It’s not hard to see that from the get-go, especially with Redzepi’s mellow narration style and the many cinematic shots of natural landscapes on land and water. In that regard, “Omnivore” is more than just a docuseries. It’s a work of art that manages to captivate, enthrall and make even the simplest of foods a major spectacle.

With “Omnivore,” Redzepi also encourages viewers and critics alike to question what the future of food television is following the death of gifted chef, storyteller and food extraordinaire Anthony Bourdain. The idea for the series came together shortly after Bourdain’s passing, Redzepi along with the series’ producer Matt Goulding told Yahoo Canada. Bourdain himself previously worked with Goulding’s media company, Roads & Kingdoms.

Unlike Bourdain’s beloved food shows like “Parts Unknown” and “No Reservations,” Redzepi’s “Omnivore” is less about the chef’s personal journey. 

“Bourdain had done that, he did it beautifully and those shows are still out there, and they’re great. But [Redzepi] wanted this to be a bigger story,” Goulding told the outlet. “We wanted this to be…our story, all of ours, as people who eat and enjoy food, and survive around these fundamental ingredients.”

Whereas Bourdain embarked on a global quest in search of the ultimate dining experience, Redzepi embarks on a global quest to understand each specific ingredient and, ultimately, manipulate it into a Michelin-level dish. 

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“[Bourdain] kind of opened up these new doors, these new corridors creatively for all of us, and where else can we go? And that meant, what if we don’t have talking heads? What if we don’t have a host?” Goulding added. 

“What if we have the big, brilliant scope of ‘Planet Earth,’ but the small intimate details of a chef’s table, but with the stories of the individuals, the hundreds of individuals in the case of these eight episodes, who are out there feeding the world.”

Redzepi’s “Omnivore” comes amid an interesting yet confusing time for food television. In recent years, food entertainment has shifted away from intimate portrayals of food preparation and more towards reality television. Food Network, for example, has abandoned its old content for a new lineup of competition-based game shows. Additionally, the network suffered from a decline in viewership after several of its staple chefs announced their leave to pursue new projects. Despite those changes, “Omnivore” reminds us that the food storytelling Bourdain was best known for is still thriving.

As Redzepi put it, “Food is never just food. It’s who we are.”

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