After completing his training in South Tyrol, he spent several periods abroad, for example in Waging am See with Alfons Schuhbeck, on Sylt with Jörg Müller, in Munich with Eckart Witzigmann, in New York with David Bouley and in London and Zurich with Mövenpick.
After his years of traveling, he returned to South Tyrol, where he has been cooking at the Relais & Châteaux Hotel & Spa Rosa Alpina in San Cassiano since 1994. In 1996, the gourmet restaurant St. Hubertus was opened in the hotel, which was awarded the first Michelin star in 2001, the second in 2006 and in 2017 – as the first restaurant in South Tyrol – the third. In 2011, the restaurant received 19 points in Gault-Millau.
Niederkofler calls his style Alpine cuisine, in which only regional products are used. He has abandoned non-regional ingredients such as foie gras and imported fish; for his “Cook the Mountain” concept, he has also banned olive oil and citrus fruits.[4] Instead, he uses grape seed oil and the acidity of grapes. He replaces ketchup with fermented plum puree. “No waste” is his motto. For the long winter months, he uses many ingredients.
At the end of March 2023, hotel operations at the Rosa Alpina were suspended for 18 months due to renovation work. In July 2023, Niederkofler opened his own restaurant called Atelier Moessmer Norbert Niederkofler in the former Moessmer cloth factory in Bruneck. The restaurant was awarded three Michelin stars and one Green Michelin star in 2023. Niederlofler was involved in the development of the “Gastronomy and Oenology in Mountain Regions” Bachelor's degree program at the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano.