Why I Follow René Redzepi's Transportive, Dreamy Instagram

Instagram stories are ephemeral, short. I scroll through them with a lazy hovering thumb, tapping a morse code on my iPhone’s screen inviting something—anything—to pique my interest. Among a swath of dog-face filters and shaky videos, one account manages to deliver.

René Redzepi, forager extraordinaire and chef of Michelin-starred restaurant Noma, proves just as adept behind the camera of his smartphone as he does in the kitchen. It is my advice, readers, that you all take the time to throw Mr. Redzepi an Instagram follow because your story watching experience is about to get so much better.

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While his Instagram feed itself is a visual treasure trove of hard to reach locales filled with even harder to access produce, the story feature is where Redzepi really pulls through.

Just this week, I watched, through Redzepi’s lens, someone slice open a deer and drain its blood. Albeit graphic (he did include a content warning!), the chef took the opportunity to explain the myriad benefits and uses of cooking with blood. Ever the missionary of nose to tail animal consumption, Redzepi invites you, mere viewer of Instagram story, into his world and into his mind.

Dispatching from Mexico, Redzepi’s stories read like catalogues of strange, unfamiliar fruits. I clicked, excitedly through a shocking amount of corn varieties, avocados with white flesh, and jackfruits larger than my hand held screen could contain.

He speaks from behind the camera in an excited lilt, eager to share with you the fruits of the forage—gifts from the environments he plumbs with earnest. I travel to hazy Scandinavian bluffs, trudging through moss, searching, reaching for tubers below the dirt, extracting from the sea onyx mussels and furry urchins.

They say Instagram is transportative. Maybe even dangerously so. But as I stand in my produce section assessing the stacks of end-of-season strawberry boxes, I welcome that danger, open my Instagram and tune out to the visuals of Redzepi’s latest adventure.