WD-50's Malcolm Livingston II is the new pastry chef of Restaurant Noma

World famous Copenhagen restaurant Noma is getting a new pastry chef: Malcolm Livingston II, from the Manhattan restaurant WD-50. Malcolm, aged 28, is a veteran of restaurants Per Se and Le Cirque, both in New York City. He currently works as head pastry chef of Wylie Dufresne’s WD-50 restaurant in Manhattan. Malcolm may have experience at some fantastic restaurants, but moving to Restaurant Noma is still a challenge. “They’re using ingredients that I’ve never even heard of,” he told The New York Times. “I’ve never foraged before. I’m from the Bronx”. René Redzepi, owner and founder of Noma told The Staff Canteen: "We are extremely happy to have Malcolm join us. We had more than 90 pastry chefs apply, and there was a handful that to us could have very capably taken over the position for Rosio. In the end, we all pointed to Malcolm. It's as simple as that." Noma had over 90 applications when they were hiring, but Malcolm was “always in the back” of René’s mind. “The WD-50 school of pastry has been, to my knowledge, nearly without equal for the past decade or so,” he said. WD-50 closes in November after eleven and a half years, leaving Malcolm to move from New York to Denmark to take up the pastry chef mantle of René Redzepi’s two Michelin starred restaurant, often voted among the best in the world. Interestingly, Noma’s current pastry chef Rosio Sánchez also spent time at WD-50. Malcolm grew up in the Bronx and studied at the Culinary Art Institute of New York City. He began his restaurant career at the well-regarded French restaurant Le Cirque in Midtown Manhattan, where he worked for a year under the tutelage of pastry chef Regis Monges. In 2007 he began working at the New American and French restaurant Per Se with pastry chefs Richard Capizzi and Sebastien Rouxel, who he has both named as mentors. After managing to secure a week long stage at WD-50, he returned to the restaurant three months later to take the position of pastry sous chef. He became pastry chef a year later. After only a short while in Noma’s Scandinavian hub, Malcolm will be travelling with the team to Japan to work at a temporary Tokyo version of the restaurant in January. More about Noma can be found here. By Stuart Armstrong