About a week before we were about to board our flight to ski in the Austrian alps, Austria went on COVID lockdown. The country with the lowest COVID rates at the time was Denmark, so we booked a last-minute trip to Copenhagen. My husband and I were only in foodie heaven Copenhagen for just three days, and of course eating at Noma and Geranium had been our bucket-list of dreams for years. But I had one week to get reservations at the restaurants, which were ranked the #1 and #2 restaurants in the WORLD at the time! Did I give up on my dreams to eat there, knowing those restaurants were super super hard to get into? NEVER!!!! STICK TO YOUR DREAMS FRIENDS, THIS IS A DREAM SUCCESS ALERT STORY!!! We ended up getting into both restaurants at the last-minute, which was truly the experience of a LIFETIME, so I wanted to share my tips for getting off the waitlist! I imagine that a lot of our success was pure luck, but a lot was also persistence. If you’re lucky enough to go to Copenhagen and prioritize food like we do (despite the heart-rate-rising prices), keep reading!
To get off the Noma waitlist:
- Step 1: Get on their online Tock waitlist (duh, I know!) for any time and date that you could possibly go. In other words, if you are flexible, put yourself on a waitlist for all lunches and all dinners on relevant dates.
- Step 2: But getting on the waitlist just means you will get an email if an opening comes up, and then you have to happen to see that email honestly within like 60 seconds to then secure that booking (in other words, just because you are on the waitlist doesn’t mean you get slotted in once a space opens up—you still have to be quick to secure the new booking). It’s not impossible but I was never the first to click on the link.
- Step 3: If you don’t succeed at securing that booking once you see that “a spot opened up” email, click refresh on the site for the following 10 to 15 minutes. Guests are typically given 5 to 10 minutes to secure the booking and if they don’t secure it (either they change their minds, or they don’t put a credit card down), the reservation opens up again. It worked for me!
- Step 4: Sometimes spots on Tock open before the “a spot opened up” emails are sent. Keep refreshing your Tock screen and you may have success that way.
- Step 5: If you live within Denmark, the cancellation policy is within 10 days; if you live outside of Denmark the cancellation policy is within 21 days, so always pay particular attention to the reservation site 11 or 22 days before you want to go, as people are likely canceling. Still, I found that many people canceled only a few days prior to their reservations, likely thanks to this horrible illness called COVID.
- Step 6: If you still aren’t getting the booking, try emailing or calling the restaurant and tell them that you can be there within 30 minutes of their call. They may bump you to the top of the waitlist.
To get off the Geranium waitlist:
Similar concept to above. With slight modifications.
- Step 1: Get on their online waitlist for any time and date that you could possibly go. In other words, if you are flexible, put yourself on a waitlist for all lunches and all dinners on relevant dates. Know that it’s easier to secure reservations on a weekday vs. a weekend.
- All of the same steps 2 through 4 from above apply to Geranium, but they use a system other than Tock through the Geranium website.
- Step 5: Geranium’s cancelation policy is that you have to cancel within 72 hours, so Geranium tended to have more booking open up about 4 days prior to the dates we were traveling. Refresh your phone a ton about 4 to 7 days before you want to go. The lunch reservations for example are often canceled between 10am and 12pm in Copenhagen, which was 4am to 6am my time, and low and behold I secured my booking my refreshing my phone at 4am. It was fate! And persistence.
- Step 6: If you still aren’t getting the booking, try calling the restaurant the day before you want to go and asking if you could sit at their table with the stools (it’s a more casual table). That particular table was unfilled when I was there. I’ve also heard that people have even had success at showing up the day of.
Moral of the story is… If you really want to eat at these experience-of-a-lifetime restaurants, don’t give up! You CAN get in at the last-minute! Also, it’s better to try and fail than to never try at all, right? I mean, these are two of the World’s Best Restaurants, and omgomgomg they are worth every effort. KEEP AT IT, YOU’VE GOT THIS. 🙂
