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Imagine looking up from delicately nibbling your starter of crispy deer lichen to find someone staring in the window at your plate.

It's hardly surprising that a steady swarm of voyeuristic food tourists descended on a certain restaurant in Copenhagen to check out its menu - if only to watch what people were eating - Noma is consistently voted the 'best restaurant in the world' after all.

But some diners found the fact that hundreds of tourists were congregating outside the restaurant so disconcerting its founders decided to take action to stop persistent oglers.

NOW try looking in! The gardens spread around the outside of the building act as a deterrent to gawpers

Don't worry, we can still look at the menu: Swarms of food tourists used to congregate outside Noma before the gardens were created

Chef and co-owner René Redzepi commissioned a team of Danish architects to create a garden to reflect the adventurous and delicate modern Nordic cuisine within.

However this week it was revealed that the Nordic garden completed at the end of last year had been created to - politely - deter persistent oglers.

With an eclectic menu offering dishes such as a cod roe sandwich made up of a 'razor thin slice of wild duck skin and fresh vinegar-dusted herbs on rippled toast' and 'sliced chips of dehydrated scallops on a bed of watercress, beech nuts and squid ink' the exterior had t to be interesting too.

Rocky terrain: The lumps and bumps in the grass and a rocky Nordic design make the garden an effective obstacle

Accordingly the rocky garden cut into the concrete harbour that surrounds the 18th-century warehouse in which Noma is housed, is an interesting, rugged landscape of evergreen plants from Scandinavia and lava stones from Iceland.

'René Redzepi was not interested in putting up a red rope in front of the restaurant," says POLYFORM partner Thomas Kock, who worked on the project.

'He didn't want to exclude the curious minds but rather create a buffer zone around the restaurant, which gave visitors the experience of Noma and in this way included them.'

The restaurant has not only redefined contemporary Nordic cuisine, but been named best in the world four times in the last five years, and holds two Michelin stars.