{"id":379926,"date":"2026-03-11T18:23:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T18:23:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/379926\/"},"modified":"2026-03-11T18:23:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T18:23:12","slug":"a-chefs-past-abuse-haunts-noma-the-worlds-top-rated-restaurant-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/379926\/","title":{"rendered":"a chef\u2019s past abuse haunts Noma, the world\u2019s top-rated restaurant \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

On a February night in 2014, in the middle of a busy dinner at the acclaimed Copenhagen restaurant Noma, the founding chef, Ren\u00e9 Redzepi, ordered the entire kitchen staff to follow him outside into the cold.<\/p>\n

He was shoving a sous-chef in front of him, a young man who had put on techno music, a genre that Redzepi disliked, in the production kitchen. Far from the diningroom, this was where unpaid interns worked 16-hour days, performing tasks such as picking herbs and cleaning pine cones to adorn Redzepi\u2019s celebrated New Nordic dishes.<\/p>\n

Redzepi taunted the chef over and over as about 40 cooks, in short sleeves and aprons, formed the usual circle around the two men. It was not the first time they had been forced to participate in a public shaming, according to two chefs who were present.<\/p>\n

Redzepi escalated the attack, punching his employee in the ribs and screaming that no one would go back inside until the chef said, loudly enough for all to hear, that he liked giving DJs oral sex. His co-workers stood in silence until he breathlessly complied. Then they filed back into the kitchen and returned to work.<\/p>\n

The episode was not mentioned again. Dozens of former employees described other violent punishments and said silence among the staff was customary afterwards.<\/p>\n

\u201cGoing to work felt like going to war,\u201d said Alessia, now a chef in London, who was in that circle, and asked that her surname not be used because she feared retaliation. \u201cYou had to force yourself to be strong, to show no fear.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Redzepi and those who now work with him say the abuse is in the past, the former employees contend that he has never been held truly accountable.<\/p>\n

Since 2004, Redzepi has been rewriting the rules of fine dining, preaching sustainable eating and creating jewel-like plates that earned Noma three Michelin stars and landed it five times at No 1 on the World\u2019s 50 Best Restaurants List. For effectively transforming the nation into a culinary destination, Redzepi was knighted by the queen of Denmark. In 2013, Anthony Bourdain called him \u201cwithout a doubt, the most influential, provocative, and important chef in the world\u201d.<\/p>\n

At the peak of his fame, in 2023, Redzepi announced that he would close Noma as a restaurant<\/a> to devote attention to its empire of innovations: its test kitchen, biotech collaborations and global pop-ups, which have become bucket-list destinations for wealthy diners from around the world.<\/p>\n

But in recent weeks, Noma\u2019s upcoming pop-up in Los Angeles, a $1,500-per person dinner series beginning today, has sparked a public conversation about Redzepi\u2019s past behaviour. Yesterday, two major sponsors of the series pulled out.<\/p>\n

\"JasonJason Ignacio White, former director of fermentation at Noma and a whistleblower over chef Ren\u00e9 Redzepi\u2019s abuses, photographed in Seoul, South Korea, this month. Photograph: Jun Michael Park\/The New York Times<\/p>\n

Jason Ignacio White, a former head of Noma\u2019s fermentation lab, began posting on Instagram last month, saying he had witnessed physical and psychological abuse during three years with the organisation. He posted allegations sent to him by many other Noma alumni; those posts have been viewed more than 14 million times.<\/p>\n

The New York Times independently interviewed 35 former employees, whose accounts trace a pattern of physical punishment Redzepi allegedly inflicted on his staff. Between 2009 and 2017, they said, he punched employees in the face, jabbed them with kitchen implements and slammed them against walls. They described lasting trauma from layers of psychological abuse, including intimidation, body shaming and public ridicule. Redzepi, they said, threatened to use his influence to get them blacklisted from restaurants around the world, to have their families deported or to get their wives fired from their jobs at other businesses.<\/p>\n

Since Redzepi was first captured on camera screaming at cooks in the 2008 documentary Noma at Boiling Point, he has made several public apologies. In a 2015 essay, he acknowledged that he had been a \u201cbeast\u201d who pushed and bullied his subordinates. In a 2022 interview with The Times of London, he expressed regret about his past, saying that he \u201cnever hit anyone\u201d but \u201cprobably bumped into people\u201d.<\/p>\n

In a statement to The New York Times on Friday, March 6th, he said: \u201cAlthough I don\u2019t recognise all details in these stories, I can see enough of my past behaviour reflected in them to understand that my actions were harmful to people who worked with me. To those who have suffered under my leadership, my bad judgment, or my anger, I am deeply sorry and I have worked to change.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said he stepped away from leading day-to-day service years ago and has undergone therapy and \u201cfound better ways to manage my anger\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"RenéRen\u00e9 Redzepi cuts a mango at a Noma pop-up in Tulum, Mexico, April 19th, 2017. Photograph: Adriana Zehbrauskas\/The New York Times <\/p>\n

Many former employees said that working at Noma, while never easy, was worthwhile because of how Redzepi had opened up fine dining to practices such as foraging and fermentation. \u201cWe got to be outside studying the progression of ramsons, then in the shipping container lab learning about koji,\u201d said Julian Fortu, an intern in 2015. Like many others, he said that after his time at Noma, doors opened to him that he would otherwise never have been able to walk through.<\/p>\n

Restaurant kitchens have long been punishing workplaces, as reflected in popular entertainment such as TV\u2019s The Bear<\/a> and the film The Menu, and many chefs have admitted to bullying workers. But the former Noma employees said Redzepi has not acknowledged the extent of the violence they say he inflicted for years.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0How fine-dining restaurants are embracing no-alcohol trendsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

That, several people said, is why they are speaking out now. Redzepi\u2019s Los Angeles pop-up, and the high price it is commanding, they say, is a reminder that his empire was built on their work \u2013 and their pain.<\/p>\n

Ben, a chef in Australia, who worked at Noma in 2012, said that punishing all the employees for one person\u2019s mistake was routine. \u201cHe just went down the line and punched us in the chest\u201d while yelling expletives into everyone\u2019s faces, said the chef, who asked that his surname not be used because he feared retaliation \u2013 \u201ceven the interns who had been upstairs picking elderflowers\u201d.<\/p>\n

When Redzepi wanted to discipline them while there were customers in the diningroom, several employees said, he would crouch under the counters in the open kitchen and jab them in the legs with his fingers or a nearby utensil, like a barbecue fork.<\/p>\n

One former cook, who requested anonymity because he feared retaliation, said Redzepi had physically attacked him more times than he could remember during his time at Noma. He recalled that one night in 2011, Redzepi noticed that he had left a tiny tweezer mark on a flower petal as he placed it on to a dish. Redzepi, he said, grabbed the straps of his apron and slammed him against the wall, then punched him twice in the stomach.<\/p>\n

\"RenéRen\u00e9 Redzepi at Noma in Copenhagen in 2008. Photograph: John McConnico\/The New York Times <\/p>\n

Some 30 former employees said that being hit by Redzepi, and by the senior cooks who ran the kitchen, was routine.<\/p>\n

Many dishes at Noma and its pop-ups include 20 or more components, and its signature style includes complex, fragile items such as insect-shaped morsels made of fruit leather and tiny plums wrapped in kelp. The work was broken down according to a hierarchy that began with the interns, who reported to chefs de partie, who reported to the sous-chefs who ran the kitchen during service and often remained in their roles for years. To produce enough for each dinner, many of the cooks at every level started early in the morning and worked until the kitchen was clean, at 1am.<\/p>\n

That workload, plus the perfectionism that Redzepi enforced from the top, they said, generated constant, frantic urgency. \u201cIt felt like we were working in an ER or a submarine that was going down,\u201d said Ben, the Australian chef. \u201cIt was hell, but I learned so much that I can\u2019t say I regret it.\u201d<\/p>\n

One chef in London, who had worked at several Michelin-starred restaurants in Europe, saved for a year and sold her car so she could afford to take a job at Noma in 2013. She said she couldn\u2019t stop working long enough to eat, and lost 40 pounds during the first year. (She requested anonymity, saying she did not want to face public discussion of a traumatic event.)<\/p>\n

\"RenéRen\u00e9 Redzepi’s creativity remains unmatched. Photograph: Ditte Isager\/The New York Times <\/p>\n

One night, she said, Redzepi spotted her using a phone, which was strictly forbidden during service. (She recalled that she was using it to turn down the volume of the music in the diningroom at a guest\u2019s request.) Without a word, she said, he punched her in the ribs hard enough that she fell against a metal counter and cut her hip on its sharp corner.<\/p>\n

She was left on the floor, bleeding and in tears, she recalled, but no one said a word as she fled to the dressing room. When a sous-chef eventually came to find her, she said, he asked only whether she was okay to return to work. She went back to her station and finished her shift. (An email exchange with her parents confirms that she told them of the incident at the time.)<\/p>\n

She said she worked the remaining months of her contract because she felt it was a privilege, especially as a Latina, to work at the best restaurant in the world. Co-workers, she said, seemed to regard the violence as normal.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Irish chef aids reinvention of former best restaurant, NomaOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Noma said the organisation takes her claim seriously and has looked into it but could not verify the chef\u2019s account.<\/p>\n

Even after 2017, as Redzepi gradually reined himself in, many former employees say senior chefs maintained the abusive culture in the kitchen, with his tacit approval. \u201cRen\u00e9 raised a generation of bullies, and they bullied us,\u201d said Mehmet \u00c7ekirge, who worked as a Noma intern in 2018.<\/p>\n

Because he came from Turkey, \u00c7ekirge said, supervisors made gobbling sounds when he passed their stations. He was mocked for his accent, called a donkey, and told he wasn\u2019t Noma material. \u201cI swallowed it all because I wanted to prove I was a team player, that I could take it,\u201d he said. When he finished his three-month stint, he said, it was with a crushing weight of shame and failure. \u201cIt took me years to recover.\u201d<\/p>\n

One former intern, Redzepi\u2019s American protege Blaine Wetzel, left in 2010 after two years at Noma to open a similar restaurant in the Pacific Northwest, the Willows Inn. It closed in 2022 after Wetzel was accused of physical and verbal abuse.<\/p>\n

At Noma, each of three annual \u201cseasons\u201d brought a new group of 30 to 40 interns who had competed with thousands of others for the privilege of working unpaid for three months while living in one of the most expensive cities in the world. Many walked out in tears midshift or disappeared after a few days.<\/p>\n

The person assigned to support the interns, Bente Svendsen, was the one-woman human resources department, and happened to be Redzepi\u2019s mother-in-law. Many former employees said she and other senior managers \u2013 including Redzepi\u2019s wife, Nadine, and the long-time chief executive, Peter Kreiner \u2013 were told about the violence in the kitchen but failed to put a stop to it.<\/p>\n

\"NomaNoma became one of the world\u2019s most famous restaurants under Ren\u00e9 Redzepi. Photograph: Ditte Isager\/The New York Times <\/p>\n

Conditions at many restaurants have improved since the #MeToo and social justice movements changed what workers are willing to accept on the job. A Noma spokesperson said the company was overhauled and now has formal HR systems, management training and improved work hours.<\/p>\n

In 2022, after media outlets in Denmark and around the world began documenting Noma\u2019s reliance on \u2013 and exploitation of \u2013 free labour, Redzepi announced that future interns would be paid. Soon afterwards, he said the entire system of fine dining had become \u201cunsustainable\u201d and that the restaurant would close.<\/p>\n

In theory, Noma is now a mobile hospitality venture anchored by Noma Projects, a line of products including rose vinegar and fish sauce that consumers can buy (or subscribe to, for $790 per year). This new model depends more than ever on Redzepi\u2019s personal brand as a creative pioneer.<\/p>\n

But the Los Angeles pop-up has already made some cracks in his polished image. Some local chefs have posted that they find it offensive that Noma is swooping in and drawing deep-pocketed diners when Los Angeles restaurants are facing existential threats from climate change, inflation and immigration enforcement.<\/p>\n

And with its $1,500 price tag, \u201cNoma has become so exclusive that it\u2019s no longer a restaurant; it\u2019s performance art,\u201d said Marco Cerruti, a chef in Los Angeles who worked at the Copenhagen restaurant in 2015.<\/p>\n

He said that while Redzepi\u2019s creativity remains unmatched, his status as a global leader is no longer deserved, and his legacy is diminished. \u201cWhat is Ren\u00e9 modelling for the industry now?\u201d he said. \u201cFeeding rich people and exploiting young aspirational chefs.\u201d – This article originally appeared in The New York Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On a February night in 2014, in the middle of a busy dinner at the acclaimed Copenhagen restaurant…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":379927,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[75],"tags":[382,18,117,75231,19,17,5281],"class_list":["post-379926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-denmark","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-fine-dining","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-restaurant"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116211941780203159","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=379926"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379926\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/379927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=379926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=379926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=379926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}