The day I cooked like the best restaurant on earth

For the past decade, the top slot in Restaurant Magazine's poll of the World's 50 Best Restaurants has been occupied by Ferran Adria's El Bulli near Barcelona, Heston Blumenthal's Fat Duck in Berkshire or Thomas Keller's French Laundry in California.

But this week, the position was awarded to Noma restaurant in Copenhagen, where 32-year-old chef René Redzepi has developed a cuisine based on local ingredients (all his staff must double as foragers) and eschews the hi-tech approaches of Adria and Blumenthal.

The multi-course meals served at Noma, a converted salt mill that seats 42, have acted as an irresistible magnet for gourmets and chefs. "It was a brilliant meal," said Marcus Wareing, culinary genius of The Berkeley, Knightsbridge. "It captured Redzepi's country and his immediate surroundings perfectly. I had 22 courses – the à la carte menu is very small – it's all about his flavours, but there wasn't a single combination that didn't work."

Since Noma was virtually impossible to get into even before its accolade, I decided to settle for second best and attempt to cook a Noma meal at home. But is it possible to recreate the Danish maestro's dazzling dishes in suburban London rather than in Scandinavia? A further problem is that Redzepi's book, Noma: Time & Place in Nordic Cuisine, is not published in the country until September. However, a few websites such as caterersearch.com and the endless banquet food blog offer sample recipes and descriptions of his legendary nibbles.

After giving it some thought, I decided against "a mahogany haunch of musk ox from Greenland's west coast resting in gamboges jus". Similarly, wild beach roses ("Last year we picked 100 kilos," said Redzepi) marinaded in apple vinegar posed a slight problem as a garnish. The same went for strandsennep (beach mustard), fermented Icelandic milk, sautéed bulrush and birch sorbet, though lingonberries are available (in jam form) at Ikea.

However, a few dishes did look feasible, including truffled eggs on spice bread and sautéed scallops with dill and crème of egg yolks. Somewhat ambitiously, I decided to have a bash at Redzepi's signature dish – vegetable field with malt soil and herbs. This field actually resembles a miniature field. For all his back-to-the-roots earthiness, Redzepi is not averse to an element of cheffy playfulness. His CV includes a stint at the French Laundry, where Thomas Keller's dish "oysters and pearls" combines oysters with pearl tapioca.

drive from www.independent.co.uk